Having spent the greater part of my childhood shunning paternal, green fingered encouragement, it must have come as some surprise when I began to show an interest in growing plants. It began with pots, lots of pots, on a structurally questionable flat roof outside our tiny flat in Bristol. Disregarding the vertiginous drop pot-side, I nurtured chantenays that would have been the envy of any matchstick maker. Too puny to peel they still packed enough punch to set my inner horticultural wheels in motion. I was gifted!

When we moved into our first house, I was inspired by the garden. Previous owners had invested in fruit trees, amongst other unusual ornamentals, and we found ourselves the proud guardians of an orchard; plum, apples, green gage, cherry and the glorious pear tree!  Towering above the dubiously sited raspberry canes beneath, each year the acme of home grown fruits tantalised with the promise of a plentiful harvest. Hundreds of fruitlets succumbed to the greed of squirrels and pigeons alike, often espied guzzling our anticipated prize. Enough to disturb the tranquillity of a coffee in bed! For the few who survived, we then attempted to navigate the complex choreography of ensuring their survival from tree to plate, often foiled by the fickle stems giving way and plunging the juicy, ripe pears to a sweet, pureed demise. Triumphant rejoicing for the few pears that were then transformed into culinary delights that were gobbled down, all the more delectable for the victory in seeing them across the gastronomic finish line.

You may be wondering what any of this has got to do with perry pears. Well, as I reflect on how we came embark on a journey to buy a field, plant an orchard and produce sustainable cider and perry; that was where it all began for me. 

Fast forward past longstanding and bitter feuds with our neighbouring Sciuridae and we found ourselves starting to plant the orchard we’d long dreamed of.  The very first tree we planted, during the Beast from the East of February 2018, was a Hendre Huffcap (AKA Lumberskull). At the time our selection of trees was guided under the tutelage of Adam (of the Apples) and we knew little of the wondrous fruit varieties that formed the starting point for all the quincunx that followed.

As with our obsession in the regeneration of our little plot, our passion for seeking out imperilled varieties shows little restraint. ‘We don’t need any more trees’, swiftly descends into ‘Oops I did it again’ (though almost certainly not what Britney was making reference to; I‘ve generally danced to the beat of a non-top-40 drum) and now we are proud stewards of a burgeoning cluster of Perry trees in Mid-Devon, where sadly few veteran Perry trees remain, from Hartpury to Green Horse, and my guilty pleasure; Thorn.

As a child I knew of perry, but not its majesty, joy and diverse potential. With Babycham and Labrini favourites of my parents as a celebratory fizz, the bar was set low for my discovery of Perry’s potential in my latter years (though I did little to complain as I mineswept the saccharine bubbles in ‘helping’ to tidy away the table). Few have ventured past the reputation that perry achieved in the 70s and 80s, and fewer have experienced a perry fermented from true perry pears in all their glory.

For many years now, a drive along a country lane often stutters along amidst cries of ‘Orchard!’, or with the dog rudely catapulted from her slumber by an emergency break stimulated by ‘I thought I saw a perry’. We are enormously lucky to have been granted permission by some local owners of perry pear trees, to oversee the harvest of their fruit. And with great fruit comes great responsibility. Each year we treasure the opportunity to encourage the best from the fruit we have access to, tenderly revisiting vessels to ensure the fruit has all it requires for the long months ahead. 

That’s not to say that the perry fermentations we’ve worked with (read ‘wrangled’ for some) have always cooperated in their metamorphoses from hostile astringency and adamantine density to a delicate, revered libation. As Adam Wells infers in his lucid accounts of Perry makers across the lands, the perrymaker often lacks the same lucidity through the course of their fermentations, and more likely, are a few pears short of a bushel*. Perry pears are wont to have a mind of their own as to their level of cooperation, with filtering and disgorging inevitably ranging from a polite, though insistent, bun fight, to an all-out brouhaha.

Our first perry, Moonlight, a blend of incredibly local fruit donated by artisan enthusiasts was floral and citric on the nose, with a vice like grip and glorious fizz that bursts on the tongue with mouth filling energy (folly to include here as our latest vintage lies dormant within the grotto at Rull, but once we’d perfected our first methode traditionelle perry, we never looked back!)

2023 saw our first cold racked perry. As someone who favours a bone-tingling, dry astringency to cider and perry I wasn’t expecting this to be one I’d be reaching for, but the gentle encouragement through fermentation has resulted in a perry that retains a whacking punch of the light, floral notes of the original pressings (if that isn’t too much of a contradiction).

So, to some perries that we’ve had the pleasure of sampling over the last year, that work on strengthening our reverence to the noble perry.

Bollhayes (Methode Traditionelle, #336, 7.6%);

Has to be one of my favourites, given as I am to a Brut Nature. Pale gold with fine bubbles, super crisp with a hint of apricot tart  and fresh green citrus with a gentle astringency.

Cwm Maddoc (Pet Nat, 5.1%, 2021, Thorn);

Delicate honeysuckle with fresh green pear and a citrus twist. Medium sweet. Light and crisp with a very delicate astringency. One that can easily disappear quickly! 

Wildings (Oldfield, Sparkling medium sweet perry. 750ml. 5.9%)

Sumptuous quince and pear on the nose with a good level of sweetness, with a delicate fizz. Again, one that doesn’t last long on the table.

The list is brief, though only because my participation in a bottle of perry is largely without pen in hand, and inevitably centred wholeheartedly on becoming distracted by tantalising nuance and increasingly flamboyant adjectives.  The magical art of craft perry production is one that we always celebrate!

As perry acolytes, it’s a great privilege of ours to be able to exhort the unique characteristics of perry to cider lovers who we meet at events and tastings. Many know not the journey of fanaticism that the discovery of great perry can take you on, and the compulsive purchases that ensue. Anything we can do to raise demand for the majestic perry pear and its divine bounty can surely only lead to more perry trees being planted. And that can never be a bad thing.

* Take A Tequila barrel aged perry for instance; only those of loose wit or foolhardy optimism could have determined that the destiny of wildly citric perry varieties lies nestled in the prickles of a fermented Mexican agave.