Appellation d’origine protégée (AOP) · Cider
Cidre du Perche
The newest French cider appellation, recognised in 2020 for the wooded bocage on the Norman marches, and one of only two that forbid pitching yeast into the first fermentation.
Written on the label as Cidre du Perche / Perche.
This record was taken as at 2026-08-23 and describes an instrument administered in France.
CiderHQ records the structure of a specification: that it defines an area, that it restricts the fruit, that it sets a minimum strength or a sweetness band. Where a figure was not verified against the register itself, this page says a threshold exists and stops there rather than reproducing a number it cannot trace. Knowing that a limit is written down, and where it is written down, is worth more than a plausible figure.
Designation rules change. Specifications are amended, and the amendments do not announce themselves. Anyone relying on this commercially — labelling a product, drafting a claim, buying under the name — must read the current specification on the register itself rather than any summary of it, including this one.
Read the register: INAO
What the specification requires
Each requirement is recorded as a claim with its jurisdiction, its as-of date and the source it rests on. Requirements that could not carry all three are not shown.
The specification in force is the cahier des charges homologated by arrêté of 28 October 2020, published in the Journal officiel on 7 November 2020 and in the Bulletin officiel du Ministère de l’agriculture 2020-47. The geographical area was approved by the INAO national committee on 6 February 2020, on the 2019 official geographic code.
Primary authority France (appellation d’origine protégée) · recorded as at 2026-08-23 · INAO
This is the most recently recognised French cider appellation, and it is young enough that most accounts of French cider — including reference works still in print — list six and not seven.
Every stage of production — harvesting the apples, making the cider, conditioning it in bottle and packaging it — must take place inside the delimited area, which covers twenty-six whole communes in the Eure-et-Loir together with communes in the Orne.
Primary authority France (appellation d’origine protégée) · recorded as at 2026-08-23 · INAO
The permitted fruit is listed in two tiers. Principal varieties are divided into bitter, bittersweet, sweet and acidulée families and include Ameret, Fréquin blanc, Fréquin long, Fréquin rouge, Gringoire, Médaille d’or and Tardive de la Sarthe among the bitters, and Argile grise, Argile rouge, Bedan, Binet rouge, Cartigny, Damelot, Moulin à vent, Noël des Champs and Saint-Hilaire among the bittersweets. Accessory varieties are Kermerrien and Peau de chien (bitter), Bisquet, Clos Renaux and Douce Moën (bittersweet), Douce Coët Ligné (sweet) and Avrolles and Petit jaune (acidulée). Acidulée varieties may occupy no more than 20% of the orchard area, and unlisted varieties are permitted only on high stems, up to 20% of the orchard area, where they count as accessory.
Primary authority France (appellation d’origine protégée) · recorded as at 2026-08-23 · INAO
The Perche list overlaps the Norman and Breton ones without matching either. Names such as Fréquin Lacaille, Muscadet petit de l’Orne, Rousse de l’Orne and Pomme de Boué belong to this district specifically, and the presence of a substantial sweet-variety group distinguishes the blend from the Cotentin’s almost entirely bitter one.
High-stem orchards are limited to 280 trees per hectare with at least 5 metres between trees, and bush orchards to 800 per hectare. High-stem orchards must make up at least 30% of the total orchard area. Complete grassing is compulsory from the seventh year after planting for high stems, except a 30-centimetre radius round the trunk, and from the third year for bush orchards, except a metre-wide strip under the row. Mistletoe must be controlled, and irrigation is prohibited once the trees come into production.
Primary authority France (appellation d’origine protégée) · recorded as at 2026-08-23 · INAO
Maximum average orchard yield is 20 tonnes of apples or 150 hectolitres of must per hectare for high-stem orchards and 30 tonnes or 225 hectolitres for bush orchards. Where high-stem trees are scattered, each is counted at a fixed projected area of 142 square metres. Trees count towards production from the seventh year after planting for high stems and the third for bush trees.
Primary authority France (appellation d’origine protégée) · recorded as at 2026-08-23 · INAO
Milling may not begin before 15 October, and the date on which the milling season opens is fixed each year by INAO on the advice of the producer group, taking account of the ripeness actually observed. The acidulée fruit must be harvested separately from the principal and accessory categories.
Primary authority France (appellation d’origine protégée) · recorded as at 2026-08-23 · INAO
An opening date set annually on observed ripeness rather than by the calendar is rare in cider regulation and familiar from wine. It exists because a specification that fixed one date would be wrong in most seasons, and because picking cider fruit early is the cheapest way to make a thin cider.
The apples are milled or grated to a pulp and pressed, and the musts must reach a minimum natural density of 1.045 at 20 °C. Clarification of the musts is compulsory, obtained naturally or assisted by flotation or by permitted settling salts and enzymes.
Primary authority France (appellation d’origine protégée) · recorded as at 2026-08-23 · INAO
The alcoholic fermentation preceding bottling must take place without any addition of exogenous yeasts, and bottling may not occur until at least eight weeks after pressing. Pasteurisation, added water, added colourings and any operation intended to alter the natural sugar content are prohibited at every stage. Clarification of the ciders during and after fermentation is permitted only by racking, filtration, fining or centrifugation.
Primary authority France (appellation d’origine protégée) · recorded as at 2026-08-23 · INAO
Eight weeks in tank against six elsewhere in Normandy, and the specification’s own account of the region names the comparison: a slow, unpitched tank fermentation is what the appellation understands itself to be defending.
Each cuvée must come from a single production campaign, carry no more than 20% acidulée varieties and at least 50% principal varieties. The sparkle must be obtained without gasification, exclusively by fermenting part of the residual sugar in the bottle, over at least six weeks. Bottling must be completed before 30 September following the harvest, and bottles of 37.5 centilitres or more must be closed with a mushroom-type cork.
Primary authority France (appellation d’origine protégée) · recorded as at 2026-08-23 · INAO
The cider must show an acquired alcoholic strength of at least 3.5% vol, a total alcoholic strength of at least 6% vol, a sugar content of at least 18 grams per litre, and a pressure of at least 1.5 bar at 20 °C.
Primary authority France (appellation d’origine protégée) · recorded as at 2026-08-23 · INAO
The specification describes the cider as effervescent, demi-sec or brut, unpasteurised and not gasified, golden yellow to orange, round, balanced between sweet, bitter and acid flavours, with fruity notes, a light bitterness in the mid-palate and a note of freshness in the finish.
Primary authority France (appellation d’origine protégée) · recorded as at 2026-08-23 · INAO
Naming demi-sec or brut in the product description is unusual: this appellation excludes a doux by definition, where Pays d’Auge and Cornouaille simply require a minimum residual sugar and let the producer place the result.
About Cidre du Perche
The Perche is high, wooded, hedged country straddling the Orne and the Eure-et-Loir on the southern edge of what is administratively Normandy and culturally something of its own. It is better known for its draught horses than for its cider, and its appellation is very new: the cahier des charges was homologated in October 2020, which makes it the fifth French cider or perry appellation of origin and the only one recognised in the present century. A reference work printed before then does not mention it, and most accounts of French cider still list four — Pays d’Auge, Cornouaille, Cotentin and Domfront — alongside the two protected indications, Bretagne and Normandie. The distinction between those two groups matters more than the count: the appellations of origin forbid concentrate, added water and injected gas, and the indications permit all three.
What the specification defends is a slow, cold, unpitched fermentation. Two clauses carry that. The alcoholic fermentation before bottling must run without any exogenous yeast — a prohibition shared only with Cidre Cotentin among the French appellations — and bottling may not happen until at least eight weeks after pressing, where Pays d’Auge, Cornouaille and Domfront all require six. The specification’s own account of the region makes the comparison explicitly, describing an eight-week tank ferment against six weeks elsewhere in Normandy. A third clause points the same way: milling may not start before 15 October, and the actual opening date is set each year by INAO on the ripeness observed rather than fixed in the text.
The fruit list is the district’s own. It overlaps the Norman and Breton lists without matching either, and it carries a substantial group of sweet varieties — Atroche, Doux Normandie, Grise de l’Eure, Rousse de l’Orne, Muscadet petit de l’Orne — alongside the Fréquins and the Argiles. That is a different blend from the Cotentin’s, which is bitter fruit almost throughout, and it shows in the specification’s sensory description: roundness, a balance of sweet, bitter and acid, a light bitterness in the middle of the palate rather than a dominant one.
Two honest qualifications, as everywhere in this section. The appellation regulates origin and method and makes no claim about quality, and a Perche producer working outside the specification — with pitched yeast, or bottling at six weeks — may make excellent cider and simply cannot use the name. And a designation recognised in 2020 is not evidence that the tradition is new; it is evidence that the producers organised recently. The orchards and the practice are considerably older than the paperwork.
Described in full
- Shape
- A table of seven rows and six columns. Rows are the appellations, columns are the clauses. Every cell carries a word or a number rather than a tick, so nothing is carried by a mark whose meaning has to be looked up.
- Pays d’Auge
- Must density 1.050; pectic settling compulsory; yeast may be added; bottle conditioning 6 weeks; minimum pressure 1.5 bar; acquired alcohol 3.5 per cent.
- Cornouaille
- Must sugar 108 grams per litre; défécation — keeving — compulsory and the only clarification allowed; yeast may be added; conditioning 6 weeks; 1.5 bar; 3.5 per cent.
- Cidre Cotentin
- Clarification compulsory; no yeast may be added to the first fermentation; conditioning 8 weeks, the longest of the seven; 1.0 bar, the lowest of the seven; 3.5 per cent. Also the only one with a second, drier product defined inside its own specification, the extra-brut.
- Cidre du Perche
- Must density 1.045; clarification compulsory; no yeast in the first fermentation; 8 weeks in tank before bottling; conditioning 6 weeks; 1.5 bar; 3.5 per cent.
- Domfront (perry)
- Must density 1.047; slow fermentation with nothing added to promote or retard it; conditioning 6 weeks; 1.4 bar; acquired alcohol 3.0 per cent, the lowest of the seven.
- Cidre de Bretagne IGP and Cidre de Normandie IGP
- Both are indications rather than appellations of origin and both sit apart from the five above: concentrate to 40 per cent of must volume, added water permitted, injected gas permitted, caramel permitted as a colourant, and a minimum acquired alcohol of 1.5 per cent against a total of 5.0.
- The reading
- The five appellations of origin forbid what the two indications permit. That is the whole of the difference between the two kinds of French label, and it is larger than the difference between any two of the appellations.
Where it applies
The areas named by the specification, each described in its own terms.
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 normandy cider
- Where is cider made in france — Principally in Normandy and Brittany, with smaller traditions in the Perche, Maine, Savoie and the French Basque Country. The Pays d’Auge and the Domfrontais both carry protected appellations.
Where to go next
- All protected designations — Every reserved name on CiderHQ, grouped by country, with what each kind of instrument does.
- Cider and perry in France — How cider is legally defined and taxed in the country administering this name.
- How CiderHQ handles evidence — Why a requirement here states a structure rather than a figure.
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.