Perry pear
Carisi
A tannic Domfrontais poiré pear, one of the cultivars that gives the region’s blends structure.
Also written Carisy, Poire Carisi.
- Classification
- Bittersweet — Perry pear classification
- Harvest
- Mid (Late September to mid October)
- Single varietal
- Not suited to a single-varietal cider
- Blend role
- Tannin and structure, Bittersweet base
- Origin
- The Domfrontais, southern Normandy
- Species
- Pyrus communis
- Vigour
- Vigorous
- Biennial bearing
- Markedly biennial — heavy and light years alternate
- Keeping
- Poor — mill soon after picking
How it is classified
Perry pear classification
Bittersweet
Low acid with substantial tannin — the class that gives perry grip.
Mapped from French descriptions of a tannic, low-acid pear onto the English scheme.
Every classification on CiderHQ names its system. Why there is more than one.
What it contributes to a blend
A direction, not a measurement. These bands are the level of resolution the evidence supports, and they say which way adding this fruit pushes a blend rather than what the finished cider will be.
| Axis | Typical | Range |
|---|---|---|
| Acid | Low | |
| Tannin | Firm | |
| Sugar | Moderate | |
| Bitterness | Moderate | |
| Astringency | Drying | |
| Aroma | Restrained | |
| Body | Medium |
French descriptive material on a tannic poiré pear.
A drying juice with little acidity, used in small proportion for grip.
Aroma
No aroma descriptors are recorded for Carisi, and for a great deal of cider fruit that is a finding rather than a gap. Bittersweet apples in particular contribute tannin, sugar and body while being close to aromatically mute, and most of what a cider made from them smells of was produced by the fermentation rather than carried in by the fruit. CiderHQ publishes the absence rather than filling the space with descriptors nothing supports.
Measured analysis
CiderHQ holds no sourced juice analysis for Carisi. Figures for this cultivar circulate, but they reach the present through compilation rather than through the original tables, and publishing a number we cannot attribute would give it an authority it has not earned. What is known about how the fruit behaves is described above and below.
In the orchard
- Harvest window
- Mid
- Flowering
- Not recorded
- Vigour
- Vigorous
- Cropping
- Markedly biennial — heavy and light years alternate
- Keeping
- Poor — mill soon after picking
October in the Domfrontais.
Mid-season. Self-incompatible.
Pears are not self-fertile. A variety needs another in blossom at the same time to set fruit, which is why the flowering band matters more in a perry orchard than the harvest window does.
Disease and pest susceptibility
| Issue | Susceptibility | Note |
|---|---|---|
| Pear scab | moderate | — |
How it is used
- Blended for tannin in Domfrontais poiré.
On its own
Not suited to a single-varietal cider
A blend component only.
About Carisi
Carisi is one of several tannic pears grown in the Domfrontais in small numbers to give the region’s poiré some structure. Its spelling varies between records — Carisi, Carisy — which is the same instability that produces Barland and Bareland, or Winnal’s and Winnall’s, in English perry pear lists. Locally transmitted names get written down by different people at different times.
The juice is low in acid with substantial tannin, and it is used in modest proportion. Domfrontais poiré is not a tannic drink; the tannin is there to stop a sweet, aromatic, low-alcohol liquid from being merely sweet, and a little of it goes a long way.
What is documented about this cultivar is thin, and this record reflects that rather than filling the space. The Domfrontais cultivars other than Plant de Blanc are described in the French technical literature in less detail than the major English perry pears are in theirs, and pretending otherwise would misrepresent the evidence.
Names, origin and identity
Cultivar naming is the hardest problem in cider fruit data. The same tree carries different names across ten miles, and two different trees have shared a name for two centuries.
Origin · traditional account
Local tradition, undocumented. Spelling varies between records, as it does for most locally named fruit.
Related cultivars
Recorded relationships, including the ones this fruit is routinely confused with.
Fruit that plays a similar part
Cultivars sharing a classification under the same system and a comparable role in a blend. Not a similarity score — a stated relationship.
Antricotin
A tannic Domfrontais poiré pear used to give structure to blends led by the region’s softer aromatic fruit.
Coppy
A tannic perry pear of the Welsh border country, known from few trees and giving a juice with unusual grip for its class.
Red Longdon
One of four perry pears carrying the name of the Worcestershire parish of Longdon, distinguished by its red-flushed fruit and a juice with more tannin than acid.
Red Pear
A tannic Herefordshire perry pear whose generic name has been applied to red-fruited pears generally, making orchard records that use it almost impossible to interpret.
Harley Gum
A Herefordshire perry pear whose name records a gum exuded by the tree, and one of the more distinctive names in a fruit full of them.
Nailer
A tannic perry pear of the Forest of Dean and north Worcestershire country, whose name is generally taken to record the nail-making trade.
Styles it is characteristic of
Where it grows
What people ask next
Questions readers ask about the things this page mentions. Each one goes to the section that answers it rather than to a page written to receive the question.
- What is juice blending
- What is maceration in cider making — Maceration is letting milled pomace stand before pressing, so that enzymes soften the tissue and phenolics and aroma move from the skins into the juice. It raises both colour and tannin, and raises the risk of oxidation with them.
- How are perry pears classified — Perry pears are conventionally divided by acid and tannin into sweet, medium sharp, bittersharp and bittersweet, following the scheme used in the English perry literature. Sorbitol content matters too, and it does not appear in the classes.
- What is normandy cider
- What does poire mean
- What is a geographical indication
Where to go next
- How cider apples are classified — Why there are four schemes and none of them is universal.
- The blend explorer — See which way changing the proportions moves a blend.
- Blending — What a cider maker is actually deciding when they build a blend.
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 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.
Traditional record Evidence standard for this record. What that means.