The frustrating and magnificent thing about cider and perry is that nobody – literally no one, not one of us, not me, not you, nobody – has any idea quite how good it really is.

I don’t mean this in the spirit of misty-eyed optimism, or even the sort of mildly confusing energy that scores drinks on a 100 point scale but refuses to ever award 100. I mean that there is genuinely no one one in the world who knows cider or perry well enough to mentally set the limits of its excellence.

This was brought home to me the other week at the Sagardo Forum fair, when I tasted some 46 ciders, perries and made wines, almost all entirely new to me, mainly from producers I hadn’t encountered, some from entire countries whose output had hitherto passed me by. And whilst there are plenty of people who have tried more cider and perry than I have, I suspect I’ve nonetheless been luckier in my tasting than most.

The point is, writing this annual list of the ciders and perries that have lingered most on my mind’s palate in 2023, I’m not only struck – as always – by the things I’ve tasted that I might easily have made another drinker’s list, or my own in another year, but by the thought of the ciders, makers and cidermaking countries that have eluded me entirely without my knowledge.

To which extent you could argue (and I always worry) that publishing a list of one guy’s favourite ciders and perries in a given year is a pointless exercise in irrelevant self-indulgence. And you’d have a point. Yet for the fifth time (Good Lord!) I’m sat here writing it nonetheless. Why?

Firstly, because it is a tradition that hearkens back to the very start of my regular cider and perry writing; to the first cider article on the weekly Malt Review column that became this website. Secondly, because looking back at what I have tasted and enjoyed, how it made me feel and what I thought about it then and since – and indeed comparing it to bottles on lists from previous years – helps me solidify my feelings on cider and perry more broadly, and sharing it brings me joy, does no harm and seems to be of enough interest to merit repetition.

Primarily though, the motive remains just as it was in January 2020, when I submitted my first ‘essential case’ to Malt’s ‘anything but whisky week’. It is my proof of concept.

It’s easy to forget, within our cider bubble, how few we are in number, and how few people outside it have the faintest idea that ciders and perries like those listed below even exist. For the most part, certainly in the UK, consumers still associate cider with the lagerified macro brands ubiquitously on draught in pubs. Or with uber-sweetened industrial creations which warp ideas and opinions of not only cider generally but the fascinating and historical flavoured cider (or ‘made wine’) category in particular. Most frustratingly, the mental image many – most – still have of craft/artisanal/traditional/aspirational/farmhouse/‘real’ cider is a far cry from the bottles below – often still something teased, condescended to and written off.

I’ve written before that when people hear I work in and write about wine or whisky they go ‘ooh!’ whilst when they hear about my cider and perry bits it is sometimes more of an ‘oh?’ (albeit politely). It always feels – and perhaps I am projecting – that the cider and perry interest, by comparison to those other drinks, is seen as something a little eccentric.

So this list stands for what I know cider and perry can be. Drinks as compelling and varied, made with the same craft and care, possessed of the same soul and wonder, as any other in the world. Drinks I am hugely proud and grateful to cover, and which provide me every year with new discoveries, new layers of fascination, new glimpses of brilliance previously unimagined. Drinks which deserve more confidence in themselves than I often feel they have. Drinks that spark joy. Drinks that should be on your radar, if they aren’t already.

It is very exciting to think of how much cider and perry I must have missed in 2023. To think of how many completely different lists I might have made, had I only known. Not least because if there are ciders and perries out there that might have given me more joy than the traditional baker’s dozen included below, then international cider and perry really is richer than I could ever have possibly imagined.

Everyone will have their own list of favourite bottles, boxes, cans or kegs from 2023. But these, for whatever it’s worth, and in no order whatsoever, are mine.

1. Eric Bordelet Poiré Granit 2021

My greatest cider and perry regret of 2023 is that car trouble during my brief visit to Normandy prevented me from meeting the legendary Eric Bordelet. But a small consolation was tasting his Poiré Granit 2021 as a ‘warmup’ before the trip and remembering just how stratospherically good this annual cuvée is.

Everything about it is astonishing. The age of the triple-centurion trees from which it is made. The fact that it is as metronomically brilliant as it is year on year, without fail. But most astonishing is the sheer precision with which it is made. That a fruit as potentially troublesome and truculent and uncooperative as the perry pear can be transformed into a drink of this clarity and elegance and grace and intensity of flavour.

This is the second time that a vintage of Poiré Granit has appeared in one of my essential cases. The previous appearance was in the very first. And I can’t help feeling that, had I drunk it more often in the meantime, it would have appeared here again more often too. If I had to use just one perry to persuade someone of the drink’s brilliance, it would be this.

2. Artistraw Foxwhelp 2022

Oh look, he’s put another Foxwhelp on his annual list of favourites. Well, sure, and that’s preference for you perhaps, but honestly – taste this and tell me I’m wrong.

I’ve always been fond of Artistraw, but in the last couple of years they really have become one of my favourite makers, and more than once they’ve been in the cluster of producers I’ve ummed and ahed about including here before cider and perry’s embarrassment of riches pointed me in a different direction.

Well I couldn’t leave this one out. Like the Poiré Granit it was simply a masterclass in precision and balanced intensity – the sort of thing that few other apples, if any, could have conjured. Sweetness and acidity riding in beautiful tandem, intense, jewel-bright flavours of Foxwhelp’s unique red fruits to the fore. Also like the Granit, I could certainly have squirrelled this aside a few years before opening it. But I didn’t – and you know what? I didn’t regret it.

3. Pacory Grim’ de Poire

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again – the fortified category contains some of the best products available across the cider and perry spectrum. I can’t help but feel that it gets less attention from the UK cider scene than it deserves – perhaps understandably, since we make so little of it on these shores.

So when I visited Normandy I was determined to stock up and try as many as I could – and my goodness am I glad that I did. I tasted pommeaux – apple juice blended with Calvados – galore (more on those later) but my heart was truly captured by a category that doesn’t really have a name of its own – the pear mistelle (effectively a pommeau but from pears).

With the same warming wrap and full body of pommeau, but with flavours that tack in an irresistible dried tropical fruit and butterscotch direction – and with an additional brightness and lick of acidity that cuts through sweetness and body, adding refreshment and lift, I’m not sure that the pear article doesn’t actually have the edge over its appley cousin. And this Pacory, the first I tried, from one of the finest perry producers in the world, might be my favourite of all. 

4. Linn Antricotin, Longbois, Gin, Brandy & Helleness Early 2021

For obvious reasons I’ve tried an awful lot of perry this year – and indeed for the second year in a row there are more perries than ciders on this list (if only by a whisker). But few have stuck with me as comprehensively as this one, from a brand new producer in Scotland.

Made from (mainly) French pear varieties grown in England and then pressed in Scotland (so goodness knows who it’d support in the Six Nations) it was simply one of the most elegant and evocative drinks of any sort I’ve ever tried. A swathe of minerality and crystalline fruit augmented by transportive aromatics and a note-perfect structure.

I’d mentally pencilled it into this list on the strength of its aroma alone; once I’d tasted it there was no doubt. Scotland is rapidly becoming a regular feature in these year-end cases. On the evidence of this year’s tasting, and the exceptional new producers that continue to emerge, that’s not going to change anytime soon. 

5. Antoine Marois Chevrette 2021

I’ll let you in on a trade secret. I keep a running document throughout the year titled ‘essential case potentials’ that I pop ciders and perries I especially enjoy into as I go. (Otherwise I wouldn’t have a chance of remembering everything!) Occasionally a producer will make a couple of different things that I think might make the list, and since my rule is no more than one per producer, I’ll write ‘either xyz or abc’.

This year there were five ciders from Antoine Marois that I reckoned were contenders. Any single one of them would easily have sat with the other bottles in this year’s final cut. He is simply an exceptional, exceptional cidermaker – one I’d include in any conversation concerning ‘best in the world’, and who would absolutely and comfortably top my list of producers I’d like to see on sale in the UK.

His cider-wine co-fermentations were breathtaking, his single orchard ciders immaculate, and if he had released his pommeau this year it would almost certainly be on this list, because it’s probably the best I’ve tried from anyone. But Chevrette, on reflection, is perhaps the bottle that’s most stuck with me. All but dry, cask aged (this is technically billed as a collaboration with a cooperage) it’s a booming, full-hearted expression of Normandy fruit, latticed with nuances of oak. It is such a compelling and confident showcase of the modern face of French cider, and my God I wish I could buy more.

6. Little Pomona The Old Man & The Bee 2020

I’ve already been exposed as nothing but an agent of big sugar this year and this 2023 essential case is reinforcing the point I’m afraid – comfortably the sweetest to date. Indeed this may be the only absolutely dry bottle on this year’s list (possibly along with Linn’s perry, as far as perry goes) – but as flagbearers for the style go, it’s an exceptional one.

This is a cider I’ve been waiting for for some time, and tasting from barrel for at least a couple of years. Funnily enough, one of the casks in its makeup was very nearly bottled as my wedding cider, as I was involved in the picking of the Dabinett component, and when we chose our cask, one of the barrels otherwise earmarked for ‘Old Man’ made the final two.

I’m very glad we chose the other though – not only for its own sake, but because this year’s edition of The Old Man and the Bee is absolutely stellar. I’ve always been a huge fan of this expression, the flagship cider of Little Pomona’s Home Orchard, and was thrilled to be able to finally do a vintage vertical earlier this year. But even in the company of its exceptional predecessors, the 2020 stood out. 

Boasting all the aromatics and structure of that marvellous vintage, time has fleshed it out beautifully. An extraordinary advert for bittersweet Herefordshire and likely my reference-point vintage for one of my favourite Little Pomona expressions for years to come.

7. Manoir de Durcet Pommeau de Normandie Cuvée 2015

Honestly. Pommeau is just the one. I’ve always been a huge fan of fortified drinks in general, but the more pommeaux I try, the more deeply I fall in love with the marriage of apple and spirit.

Having said that Antoine’s was possibly my favourite of the year – and the pommeaux I’ve tried this year certainly represent the high water mark of pommeaux I’ve tried ever – this one would be the alternative contender. Pommeau, to my taste, is at its best when given extended time in oak – even if not an active barrel. Time and micro-oxidation work their wonders on the bittersweet fruit and the fierier edges of the spirit, and the resultant drink just oozes layered complexity.

That was certainly true of Manoir de Durcet’s. A sonorous swathe of fruit and spice, within which spirit and juice had found utterly blissful harmony. There are many, many good reasons to visit Normandy, but buying a bottle of this is not the least. It’s what great pommeau is all about.

8. Ross-on-Wye Winnal’s Longdon 2022 Keg Conditioned

Probably the most personally impactful perry I’ve tasted this year. Winnal’s was a pear I’d hear good things about without having had much opportunity to taste it as a single variety. As a result, it didn’t occupy much space in my brain when I thought about favourite perry pears.

When I tasted this Ross-on-Wye keg conditioned example, not only did that change entirely – but I had to expand the varieties section of my book to ensure Winnal’s was included. It is comfortably the best keg perry I’ve ever tried (alright, that’s not a huge category) and one of the best single variety perries I’ve tasted full stop.

A pure starburst of the freshest, ripest green and tropical fruit, it’s one of those rare varieties that is a genuinely brilliant all-rounder. Body, acidity, structure, fruit – it has them all in glorious spades. My first taste of this keg rocketed Winnal’s into the top tier of my favourite pears, and every taste I’ve had of it since has only cemented that.

Ross-on-Wye are one of only two producers to have featured in every edition of this list – and in honesty there were a couple of their different expressions I could easily have featured instead. The oak cask Brown Snout, the C1 Foxwhelp and indeed the new vintage Raison d’Être would all have been brilliant calls – but I’ve gone for this Winnal’s because of all the Ross-on-Wyes I’ve tried this year, it was the one that took me most memorably by surprise. What a producer. What a pear.

9. Jérôme Forget AOP Domfront 2016

Conversely, Plant de Blanc is a pear variety I have long been a disciple of, since it forms the backbone of one of my favourite perry styles in the world – AOP Domfront.

To bear AOP Domfront on its label a perry must (among many other strictures) be made from at least 40% Plant de Blanc. In practice they are generally far more, and single varieties are not uncommon. (Pacory, in particular, have made expressing the various different nuances of single variety Plant de Blanc an art form.)

But this bottling was, for me, the single greatest example of 100% Plant de Blanc I can remember tasting. Just over six years old when I tried it, the natural fresh apricot and tangerine flavours of the variety had broadened into a ripe and fulsome parade of tropical fruit. Full bodied, structural, drier than the Domfront norm – a marvel.

Ironically, this superlative expression of classic AOP Domfront comes from the Domfrontais producer who probably experiments more than any other with perries that don’t conform to AOP requirements. A perfect example of the truism ‘learn the rules before you break them’. 

10. Eden Falstaff 2014

I honestly think that the long-aged ice ciders from Eden are a little unfair. Simply put: if I get a chance to try one in any given year, there’s a good chance it will end up on this list. With a couple of all-but-unfindable exceptions, there is simply nothing else out there (that I know of) anything like them. And I am obsessed.

They are the supreme study in balanced enormousness. Huge in every way. Hugely sweet of course – 150 g/l residual sugar – but so huge in flavour, in complexity, in structure, in acidity that they never seem cloying. Their age, by comparison with almost every other cider I have the opportunity to taste, affords them natural additional layers of complexity, whilst the ability of their sugars and acids to withstand huge lengths of time in oak bestows those magnificent, savoury, rancio characteristics upon them that I really only find elsewhere in cider and perry in the form of Mostello.

Anyway, as soon as I got a sniff of this one – an orchard blend of various varieties, aged seven years in a French oak former white wine barrel – it was inked into my favourite bottles of the year. I’m not sure it wouldn’t be my favourite of all if I was to actually try and rank them. 

11. Thérèse Gérard Délice de Poire

This year represents the first time ever that the UK has been outnumbered in one of my essential cases. (RIP reader numbers…) In fact not only is it outnumbered overall – it isn’t even the single country with the most entries. And that despite any number of exceptional British cider and perries being produced this year.

The reason is that I have had more opportunity to taste French cider and perry than in any previous year since I began making these lists, and honestly it has strengthened my conviction that at this point in time, France is the country making, pound for pound, the best ciders and perries in the world. What’s more, insofar as I can tell, they’re only getting better and more diverse.

This bottling – another pear mistelle – came from a producer I’d never even heard of. Yet its aromatics, textures, complexities and sheer brilliance of luscious, honeyed pear fruit spoke of a maker operating at the highest level. Just how much French cider and perry treasure am I completely ignorant of? The mind boggles – but expect me to keep returning to the well whenever I can in years to come. 

12. Pomologik Gravensteiner Ice Ice Baby 2021

The latest entry to the list, but one of the bottles that made me happiest of all. Not just for the sheer brilliance of the cider itself – though this blend of dry and ice cider Gravenstein, married in cask, is one of the cleverest and most downright delicious ciders you’re likely to encounter – but for the joy of rekindling acquaintance with a much-loved cider and cidery.

I’d not tasted anything at all from Pomologik since 2020, nor any edition of their Gravensteiner Ice Ice Baby since the superlative 2017 (if indeed they had made one). But when I tasted the 2021 the vintages rolled back, and it was like bumping unexpectedly into an old friend and discovering delightedly that they hadn’t changed a bit.

It may have been a few years since I tried Pomologik’s wares last, but you can be sure I won’t make that mistake again if I can help it.

13. Bartestree Ray Williams Tribute 2022

Cider and perry are drinks of time and transience. Every harvest-based cider and perry that you open is compact of the long year that brought it to life, and the time it spent waiting in bottle for you to discover and open it. The passing of seasons, vintages and years is not only an inextricable element of cider and perry’s flavours; it is a tangible part of their soul.

With this, of course, especially in the context of the once-a-year making opportunities that vintage-based production affords, comes a heightened awareness that nothing lasts forever. I often talk to producers who cite the finite ‘number of goes’ they get at cider and perrymaking. A number further limited, inevitably, by the intense physical nature of harvest.

But that reality doesn’t make it any less sad when a much-loved producer calls time, and few makers anywhere are held in such high regard as Dave and Fiona of Herefordshire’s Bartestree, who decided that the 2022 harvest would be the last they’d undertake on a commercial basis.

This bottling, a tribute to perry legend Ray Williams and his award-winning blend of Winnal’s Longdon and Hendre Huffcap, was probably the best perry I can readily remember from a producer I’d rank as one of the best perrymakers of all. Everything I loved about Bartestree perries – their voluminous fruit, balance, breadth and (in the very best way possible) crowdpleasing accessibility – presented in the highest of definition. A swan song worthy of a special, special maker.

Conclusions

It’s been four years since I wrote that first ‘essential case’. Every year I wonder how the previous vintage can possibly be bettered, and every year – somehow – it is. I don’t know what I’ll taste in 2024 – will France prove a trump card yet again? Will I return to a drier norm? – but I can’t wait. 

To all the makers on this list, and to the many, many, many besides who have filled my year with joy and deliciousness: thank you. The world is a better place because of you and what you produce. And an extra thank you to everyone who has continued to read my random thoughts on cider and perry in 2023. Here’s to celebrating these special drinks in 2024, as we continue the long, long, fruitful exploration of just how good cider and perry can be. 

Previous essential cases, just for interest’s sake

2022

2021

2020

‘2019’ (and 2019 part 2)