Perry pear
Schweizer Wasserbirne
The mildest pear in the Austrian trial and the second named in Austrian wine law — a Swiss variety, in Austria only since about 1900, now suffering severe pear decline.
Also written Kugelbirne, Glockenbirne, Thurgauerbirne.
- Classification
- Not classified under any recorded system
- Harvest
- Mid (Late September to mid October)
- Single varietal
- Sometimes bottled on its own
- Blend role
- Sugar and body, Bulk juice
- Origin
- Switzerland, and neighbouring countries
- Species
- Pyrus communis
- Vigour
- Vigorous
- Biennial bearing
- Severely biennial — a substantial crop only every other year
- Keeping
- Poor — mill soon after picking
How it is classified
No classification scheme has been recorded for Schweizer Wasserbirne. That is common outside Europe: the English, French and Spanish systems were each built for their own fruit, and a cultivar grown where none of them applies simply has no class. What the fruit contributes to a blend is described below regardless — the class is a shorthand for that, not a substitute.
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 | Present | |
| Body | Full |
Klosterneuburg 2007–2008: 5.6 g/L acid as tartaric in the must, 2 300 mg/L total phenols. Austrian perry pear composition is reported on a different acid convention from every other figure on this site: Austrian wine law expresses titratable acidity as tartaric acid, and the research follows it, where English, French and Spanish practice all report as malic. The same juice reads roughly a quarter lower as tartaric. CiderHQ stores what was published and names the basis rather than converting.
The mildest of the Austrian musts — low acid, real phenolic weight, and a reputation for both juice and gentle Most.
Aroma
No aroma descriptors are recorded for Schweizer Wasserbirne, 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
Each figure is shown with where and when it was taken. They are not averaged: the same cultivar grown in another climate genuinely gives different numbers, and collapsing them into one would be the most misleading thing this page could do.
Measured on the juice
Measured on juice as pressed, before fermentation. This is where most cider analysis lives and what the classification schemes are defined on.
| Property | Reading | Where | When | Source |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Malic acid | 3.5 g/L | Versuchsgut Haschhof, Klosterneuburg, Lower Austria | 2007Modern analysis | Wurm, Gössinger, Wendelin and Korntheuer, HBLA und Bundesamt für Wein- und Obstbau Klosterneuburg, in Mitteilungen Klosterneuburg 61 (2011): 236–246 |
| Phenolic acids | 262.3 mg/L | Versuchsgut Haschhof, Klosterneuburg, Lower Austria | 2007Modern analysis | Wurm, Gössinger, Wendelin and Korntheuer, HBLA und Bundesamt für Wein- und Obstbau Klosterneuburg, in Mitteilungen Klosterneuburg 61 (2011): 236–246 |
| Titratable acidity | 5.6 g/L | Versuchsgut Haschhof, Klosterneuburg, Lower Austria | 2008Modern analysis | Wurm, Gössinger, Wendelin and Korntheuer, HBLA und Bundesamt für Wein- und Obstbau Klosterneuburg, in Mitteilungen Klosterneuburg 61 (2011): 236–246 |
| Total phenolics | 2300.0 mg/L | Versuchsgut Haschhof, Klosterneuburg, Lower Austria | 2007Modern analysis | Wurm, Gössinger, Wendelin and Korntheuer, HBLA und Bundesamt für Wein- und Obstbau Klosterneuburg, in Mitteilungen Klosterneuburg 61 (2011): 236–246 |
Measured on the finished drink
Measured on the finished drink, after fermentation. Not comparable with the juice figures above: fermentation, fining and time move all of these, and phenolics in particular fall substantially.
| Property | Reading | Where | When | Source |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Alcohol by volume | 7.2 % ABV | Versuchsgut Haschhof, Klosterneuburg, Lower Austria | 2008Modern analysis | Wurm, Gössinger, Wendelin and Korntheuer, HBLA und Bundesamt für Wein- und Obstbau Klosterneuburg, in Mitteilungen Klosterneuburg 61 (2011): 236–246 |
| Residual sugar | 1.2 g/L | Versuchsgut Haschhof, Klosterneuburg, Lower Austria | 2008Modern analysis | Wurm, Gössinger, Wendelin and Korntheuer, HBLA und Bundesamt für Wein- und Obstbau Klosterneuburg, in Mitteilungen Klosterneuburg 61 (2011): 236–246 |
How these were measured
- Fourier-transform infrared spectroscopy on single-variety must, one season. The fruit was stored before processing — the interval between the two dates on this record — and the storage is the point of the trial rather than an accident: the authors report that it broke tannin down to the level where very little fining was needed.
- Fourier-transform infrared spectroscopy on single-variety must, one season. The fruit was stored before processing — the interval between the two dates on this record — and the storage is the point of the trial rather than an accident: the authors report that it broke tannin down to the level where very little fining was needed. Titrated to pH 8.1 with 0.1 N sodium hydroxide and reported as TARTARIC acid, which is the Austrian wine-law convention and is not the malic convention every English and French figure on this site uses. The two are not interchangeable: the same juice reads about a quarter lower expressed as tartaric. CiderHQ stores the figure as the source reported it and states the basis rather than converting.
- Folin-Ciocalteu after removal of sugars, acids and sulphur dioxide on a C18 cartridge. Not comparable with a Löwenthal permanganate figure, which is what the historic English tables report.
- Chlorogenic acid by HPLC (ODS-Hypersil reversed phase, detection at 280 and 320 nm).
- Ion chromatography on fruit from trees on Quince A rootstock.
- A single-variety must made experimentally from trial-orchard fruit, not a commercial Most. What it shows is what the fruit can reach unaided in one Lower Austrian season.
- Titrated to pH 8.1 with 0.1 N sodium hydroxide and reported as TARTARIC acid, which is the Austrian wine-law convention and is not the malic convention every English and French figure on this site uses. The two are not interchangeable: the same juice reads about a quarter lower expressed as tartaric. CiderHQ stores the figure as the source reported it and states the basis rather than converting.
- Measured on the fruit at harvest in 2007. The same programme found that storing the fruit before pressing collapses this figure — in several varieties by more than an order of magnitude — so a harvest phenolic reading is not what reaches the must.
- Chlorogenic acid alone rather than the whole phenolic acid fraction. It is the largest single phenolic compound in these juices and it browns readily without contributing much taste.
- Fruit rather than must, and from the Quince A rootstock only; the same trial measured Pyrodwarf separately and the rootstock moved the figure.
Compare within a study to see where these figures sat among the other cultivars the same work analysed — which is a more robust statement than the figures themselves, because absolute values move between laboratories and the ordering inside one study mostly survives.
Watched in the orchard
What named research programmes recorded about this fruit at their own sites. Bloom, harvest and cropping belong to a place and a run of seasons rather than to a cultivar, so they are reported site by site rather than merged.
Klosterneuburg Mostbirnen spindle trial
Versuchsgut Haschhof, HBLA und Bundesamt für Wein- und Obstbau, Klosterneuburg, Lower Austria · 2007–2008 · Wurm, Gössinger, Wendelin and Korntheuer, HBLA und Bundesamt für Wein- und Obstbau Klosterneuburg, in Mitteilungen Klosterneuburg 61 (2011): 236–246
Pannonian-influenced continental, on the Danube north-west of Vienna: warmer and markedly drier than the Mostviertel proper, which is the perry pear country these cultivars come from. The trial orchard is a research planting rather than a working Mostviertel orchard, and the difference is worth holding in mind before a figure here is read as typical of the region.
- Harvest
- Picked 18.09.2008, pressed 23.10.2008 after storage
- Held as
- Listed as “Schweizer Wasserbirne”
The lowest acid in the trial. The authors read that as confirming the variety’s reputation for juice and mild Most, and separately record that its stocks show severe pear decline symptoms.
Fourteen Austrian perry pear cultivars planted spring 2002 at 4 × 2 m, trained as spindles on Quince A with an interstem and on Pyrodwarf, managed to organic rules; first cropping 2006. Dissolved solids by hand refractometer in °Oechsle; titratable acidity by titration to pH 8.1 with 0.1 N sodium hydroxide, reported as tartaric acid; malic and citric acid by ion chromatography; total phenols by Folin–Ciocalteu after C18 clean-up; individual phenolics by HPLC; must alcohol, sugar and acid by Fourier-transform infrared spectroscopy.
In the orchard
- Harvest window
- Mid
- Flowering
- Not recorded
- Vigour
- Vigorous
- Cropping
- Severely biennial — a substantial crop only every other year
- Keeping
- Poor — mill soon after picking
Picked in mid September at Klosterneuburg and pressed in late October. The ministry records it keeping about four weeks undamaged.
Reported among the least fruitful and most strongly alternate-bearing varieties in the trial.
Not recorded. Austrian sources do not publish flowering groups or bands for Mostbirnen in any form CiderHQ has reached.
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.
Juice and pressing
- 5.6 g/L acid as tartaric — the lowest must acid in the trial
- 4.7 g/L acid in the fruit, also the lowest
- 2 300 mg/L total phenols
- 3.5 g/L malic acid
How it is used
- Valued by Austrian Most producers for versatility, and used for juice as well as for Most.
On its own
Sometimes bottled on its own
The trial made a single-variety must from it, and its low acid is exactly why Austrian law makes an allowance for it.
About Schweizer Wasserbirne
Schweizer Wasserbirne measured the lowest acid of any pear in the Klosterneuburg trial — 5.6 grams per litre in the must, and 4.7 in the fruit — and the trial reads that as confirming its reputation for juice and for mild Most. Austrian wine law agrees with the reputation: it is one of two pears for which the minimum acidity requirement is lowered from 5.0 to 4.0 grams per litre.
It carries a substantial phenolic load despite the low acid, at 2 300 milligrams per litre of total phenols in the fruit, which is the combination the English scheme would call a bittersweet. Austrian practice does not use that vocabulary and CiderHQ does not impose it here.
The trial records something less comfortable alongside the analysis: stocks of this variety show severe pear decline symptoms, and a second study is cited agreeing. A pear valued by producers for its versatility, and named in legislation, is in trouble in the orchard.
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
A Swiss variety rather than an Austrian one, recorded in Lower Austria only from about 1900. It is named in Austrian wine law nonetheless, which says something about how quickly it became important.
Why it matters
- One of only two pear cultivars named in Austrian wine law for a lower acidity floor.
- Recorded by the trial as suffering severe pear decline, which is a conservation problem for a variety that legislation names.
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.
Green Longdon
The senior member of the Longdon group, widely grown in north-west Gloucestershire and carrying six synonyms, three of which other Longdons also claim.
Speckbirne
The principal Austrian Most pear, named in Austrian wine law for a lower acid floor, and the variety the Klosterneuburg trial pressed twice to two entirely different results.
Barnet
A very late-flowering Three Counties perry pear of mild juice, carrying six recorded synonyms and one that collides with a cider apple.
Bartestree Squash
A late-ripening Herefordshire squash pear of notably low acid, and one of the mildest juices in the modern Three Counties survey.
De Cloche
A bell-shaped Domfrontais poiré pear, planted alongside Plant de Blanc and giving a mild, sweet juice.
Green Roller
An early-flowering Three Counties perry pear with the highest assimilable nitrogen recorded in the modern survey.
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 perry — Perry is an alcoholic drink made by fermenting the juice of pears, traditionally of specific perry pear cultivars rather than eating pears. It is to pears what cider is to apples, and has its own history in the three counties of England and in Normandy.
- How long can apples be kept before pressing
- What does sweating apples mean — Sweating is holding picked fruit in a heap or store for days or weeks before milling, so it softens, loses water and gains sugar concentration. Perry pears in particular are usually held until they yield to the thumb.
- What is juice blending
- What is the main austrian most pear — Speckbirne, which Austrian wine law names for a lower acid floor. It is also the clearest caution in the Austrian data: the Klosterneuburg trial pressed it twice and got two entirely different results.
- Is most made outside the mostviertel — Yes. Upper Austria carries the same pear and apple Most tradition as the Mostviertel next door, on a large orchard base, and the boundary between them is administrative rather than cultural.
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.
Prüfung ausgewählter Mostbirnensorten als Spindel unter Bio-Produktionsbedingungen
Wurm, Gössinger, Wendelin and Korntheuer, HBLA und Bundesamt für Wein- und Obstbau Klosterneuburg, in Mitteilungen Klosterneuburg 61 (2011): 236–246 · research institute · passage verified 2026-08-25 · covers 2002–2010
Fourteen Austrian perry pears trialled at the research station that also runs Austria’s statutory fruit-wine analysis panel. The only measured Austrian Mostbirnen data CiderHQ has found, and the first Austrian figures on the site. Its tables are scanned images with no text layer, so every figure published here was read from the rendered pages directly rather than from an extraction, and the source’s own typesetting error — Knollbirne’s residual sugar printed “3,o” — is recorded rather than normalised. The acid convention is tartaric rather than malic, which is Austrian wine law and is stated on every measurement taken from it.
Österreichische Mostbirnensorten
Bundesministerium für Land- und Forstwirtschaft, Klima- und Umweltschutz, Regionen und Wasserwirtschaft (BMLUK), register of traditional Austrian foods, entry 191 · government · retrieved 2026-08-25
The Austrian agriculture ministry’s own account of its perry pears, in its register of traditional foods. It carries no analytical figures at all — no acid, no sugar, no tannin — and is cited here for synonymy, geography, dates and the ministry’s own descriptions of what the fruit tastes like. Its estimate of over 400 Mostbirne types in Austria is labelled by the ministry itself as an estimate, and CiderHQ repeats that hedge rather than the number alone.
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.
Research Evidence standard for this record. What that means.