Glossary · Perry
Poiré
French. 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.
Also written poire. Each is a name for the same thing, which is why none of them has an entry of its own.
Definition
French perry: pear juice fermented, in the Domfrontais made largely from local perry pears, keeved and bottled to finish sparkling and off-dry.
- Subject
- Perry
- Language
- French
- Also written
- poire
In more detail
The Domfrontais style is defined by keeving. Nitrogen-poor pear juice is encouraged to throw a brown cap, the clarified juice is drawn off, and fermentation proceeds slowly with residual sugar surviving into the bottle. The result is low in alcohol by cider standards, delicately sparkling and floral.
Where this is covered properly
The glossary defines; these pages explain. Each is described in its own words.
Style
Poiré
French perry, made chiefly in southern Normandy and Maine from local perry pears, characteristically sweet, low in alcohol and firmly sparkling.
Style
Poiré Domfront
The controlled appellation perry of the Domfrontais in southern Normandy, made predominantly from the Plant de Blanc pear on high-standard trees and finished sweet, low in alcohol and bottle-conditioned.
Region
Domfrontais
The perry country of southern Normandy: an area of hedged bocage around Domfront where enormous standard pear trees supply a protected perry that must be built predominantly from a single pear variety.
Production
Keeving
Forming a floating pectin gel that lifts nutrients and solids out of the juice, so that the ferment starves before it finishes and leaves natural sweetness behind.
Related terms
Terms that belong to the same part of the subject, or that this one is routinely confused with.
Perry
Perry
A fermented alcoholic drink made from the juice of pears, and specifically from perry pears rather than dessert pears. It is not cider made with pears added: it is a separate drink with its own fruit, chemistry and problems.
Perry
Poiré Domfront
The protected appellation for perry from the Domfrontais in Normandy, requiring a high minimum proportion of local perry pear cultivars, keeving, and bottle carbonation without added gas.
Fermentation
Keeving
A pre-fermentation clarification in which pectin in the juice is gelled into a floating brown cap, taking nutrients and yeast with it, so that the clear juice drawn from beneath ferments slowly and stops with sugar remaining.
Cider
Cidre bouché
French cider sold in a heavy bottle closed with a mushroom cork and wire cage, sparkling from fermentation continuing in the bottle. Literally "corked cider".
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.
Institut national de l’origine et de la qualité (INAO)
INAO · regulator · passage verified 2026-08-24
The Cidre Pays d’Auge cahier des charges was read in full on 2026-08-24, in the version homologated by arrêté of 17 January 2026 and published in the Journal officiel on 21 January. That qualification is not decoration. A revision adopted by the Comité national on 10 September 2025 is currently under the procédure nationale d’opposition, is clearly marked as not prejudging the final text, and specifies carbonation differently from the text in force — as grams of CO2 per litre rather than as a minimum pressure in bar. A summary citing the draft would have put a figure on the page that no producer is held to. CiderHQ records the operative text and says which one it is.
Institut Français des Productions Cidricoles (IFPC)
IFPC · research institute · retrieved 2026-08-24
The French technical institute for cider production. The authority for the French cultivar classification families, for keeving as an industrial process, and for the pectin and nitrogen chemistry that keeving depends on.