Glossary · Cider
Obstwein
German. Kept in its own language here rather than translated into the nearest English word, because the nearest English word is usually cut on a different axis.
Definition
In Austrian law, the umbrella term for every fermented fruit drink, pome fruit included. In German usage it is not a category at all — the German food code says Fruchtwein, and means only the non-pome ones.
- Subject
- Cider
- Language
- German
In more detail
The Austrian Weingesetz defines Obstweine as drinks made by alcoholic fermentation of the juice or mash of fresh, suitable pome, stone, berry or other fruit, at a minimum of 1.2 % vol. Everything else in Austrian fruit-drink law hangs from that definition: the sweetness ladder, the geographical tiers, the state test number.
German Fruchtwein is narrower. It is the food-code entry for wines from fruit other than apples and pears, at a minimum 5.5 % vol, and it sits alongside rather than above Apfelwein. An English text that renders both words the same way loses a real distinction between a system that treats apple wine as one fruit wine among many and a system that treats it as its own thing.
Where this is covered properly
The glossary defines; these pages explain. Each is described in its own words.
Country
Austria
Home of one of the world’s three great perry pear landscapes: in the Mostviertel, *Most* usually means a dry, tannic pear drink made from enormous standard trees standing over grazed pasture.
Style
Most
The farmhouse fermented fruit drink of Austria and southern Germany, made from apples, pears or both, and belonging to a meadow-orchard landscape as much as to a recipe.
Related terms
Terms that belong to the same part of the subject, or that this one is routinely confused with.
Cider
Most
In German-speaking Europe, either fresh fruit juice or the fermented drink made from it. Which one it means is settled by the country you are standing in, and in Austria it is settled by statute.
Cider
Zider
A defined Austrian category: fruit juice blended with fruit wine of the same fruit group, to 5 % vol and 2.5 bar. Austria has a statutory definition of cider; Germany, until 2026, had none at all.
Cider
Apfelwein
German apple wine: cider fermented dry from culinary and wild apples, usually still or lightly sparkling, sharply acidic and served in the Frankfurt region as a regional speciality.
Perry
Birnenmost
Pear must, and by extension the fermented pear drink of Austria, Switzerland and southern Germany — the central European equivalent of perry.
Where to go next
- Cider glossary — The whole vocabulary, by subject and A–Z.
- Comparisons — Terms that are only really clear when set against the thing they are not.
- Search — Finds terms by their aliases and by their spellings in other languages.
Sources
What this page rests on. Where a source is marked as registered rather than read, CiderHQ is recording that the body is authoritative on the subject without claiming to have worked through the document itself. See our evidence policy for what each state means.
Obstweinverordnung, BGBl. II Nr. 18/2014, consolidated
Republic of Austria, made under §§ 35, 36 and 37(1) of the Weingesetz 2009; consolidated text published by the Bundeskellereiinspektion · legislation · passage verified 2026-08-25
The instrument that decides what Most legally is in Austria, and the answer is: a fermented drink. That single fact is the one most often got wrong in English writing, because Most means the unfermented juice in Switzerland and is ambiguous in Germany. The ordinance also names two pear cultivars individually — Speckbirne and Schweizer Wasserbirne — in a derogation lowering their minimum acidity, which is a legislature encoding pomology. Retrieved from the federal cellar inspectorate’s mirror because the Austrian legal information system refused every automated request.
Weingesetz 2009 — Bundesgesetz über den Verkehr mit Wein und Obstwein
Republic of Austria, BGBl. I Nr. 111/2009 as amended; consolidated text mirrored by the Bundeskellereiinspektion · legislation · passage verified 2026-08-25
The enabling act above the Obstweinverordnung, and the reason Austrian fruit wine sits in wine law at all: the long title is an act on the trade in wine *and fruit wine*. It also carries the statutory definition of the Klosterneuburg must scale. Read as PDF on 2026-08-25 from the federal cellar inspectorate’s mirror of the consolidated text, because the Austrian legal information system answers automated requests with a security challenge; the mirror is headed “Bundesrecht konsolidiert” and footed www.ris.bka.gv.at.
Deutsche Lebensmittelbuch-Kommission, BAnz AT 02.03.2026 B5, GMBl 9/2026 S. 184–189; published by the Bundesministerium für Landwirtschaft, Ernährung und Heimat · standards body · passage verified 2026-08-25
Where the German numbers actually are. The Leitsätze are qualified expert opinion rather than legislation — courts use them as evidence of customary trade practice — but they are the only German statement of what an Apfelwein must contain, and they are followed. Retrieved as PDF and read on 2026-08-25, five months after this recast took effect. Two changes in the recast matter to this site. It creates *Apfel Cider* and *Birnen Cider* as a named category for the first time, at 1.2 to 8.5 % vol with up to 50 per cent water, concentrate and added aroma permitted — a category defined so as to admit almost everything the Apfelwein entry excludes. And it splits the word Speierling from the fruit: the flavour indication carries on meaning a tannic, acid-led apple wine, and only the phrase *mit Speierling-Früchten* now says that any service-tree fruit was used.