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National legal definition · Cider and perry

Cidre and poiré in French national law

The French national rules that decide what may be sold as cidre or poiré outside any appellation, and that set the sweetness terms used across the market.

This record was taken as at 2026-08-23 and describes an instrument administered in France.

Kind
National legal definition
Product
Cider and perry
Country
France
Regions covered
Stated in the specification
Register
French national regulation of cider, poiré and derived products
Record taken as at
2026-08-23
What this page is, and what it is not

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: Légifrance, JORF texte n° JORFTEXT000051223792 · European Union

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 instrument in force is décret n° 2025-162 of 20 February 2025, which came into effect on 1 July 2025 — with the “artisanal” and “rosé” mentions following on 1 January 2026 — and which repealed the décret of 30 September 1953 and the décret of 29 July 1987 that amended it. Cider and perry placed on the market or labelled up to 30 June 2025 in conformity with the previous rules may be sold until stocks are exhausted.

Primary authority France · recorded as at 2026-08-23 · Légifrance, JORF texte n° JORFTEXT000051223792, Union Nationale Interprofessionnelle Cidricole (UNICID), Jean-Louis Benassi

This replaced a text that had governed French cider for seventy-two years, and it changed the basis of the sweetness categories. Anything written about French cider labelling before 2025 — including, until this sprint, this page — describes the repealed instrument.

*Cidre* is the drink obtained by fermenting the must of fresh apples or a mixture of fresh apple and pear musts; *poiré* is the drink obtained by fermenting the must of fresh pears. Concentrated must may account for up to 50% of the total must volume.

Primary authority France · recorded as at 2026-08-23 · Légifrance, JORF texte n° JORFTEXT000051223792, Union Nationale Interprofessionnelle Cidricole (UNICID), Jean-Louis Benassi

The base definitions carry over from the 1953 décret, so a product entitled to these names before the change keeps them. Note that French national cidre may legally contain pear must — the appellations are stricter, but the national floor is not apples-only.

Cidre and poiré must reach a minimum total alcoholic strength of 5% vol, of which at least 1.5% vol is acquired; bottled versions must reach 5.5% vol total.

Primary authority France · recorded as at 2026-08-23 · Légifrance, JORF texte n° JORFTEXT000051223792, Union Nationale Interprofessionnelle Cidricole (UNICID), Jean-Louis Benassi

A minimum acquired strength of 1.5% is what allows a genuinely sweet cider to exist as cider: the remainder of the total is sugar counted as the alcohol it could still become.

The sweetness mentions are defined on acquired alcoholic strength together with density at 20 °C, not on sugar content. *Doux*: acquired strength no greater than 3% vol and density at least 1.024. *Demi-sec*: acquired strength above 3% vol and density above 1.016. *Brut*: acquired strength at least 3.5% vol and density no greater than 1.016. *Extra-brut*: acquired strength at least 5% vol and density below 1.013.

Primary authority France · recorded as at 2026-08-23 · Légifrance, JORF texte n° JORFTEXT000051223792, Union Nationale Interprofessionnelle Cidricole (UNICID), Jean-Louis Benassi

This is the substantive change of 2025 and it is widely misreported. Under the old décret these were residual-sugar bands — brut below 28 g/L, demi-sec between 28 and 42, doux above 35 — and any source still quoting those figures is quoting a repealed instrument. The new bands deliberately overlap, so a cider can satisfy more than one, and they can be checked with a hydrometer instead of a sugar analysis. An extra-brut tier now exists in national law where before it did not.

The décret defines qualifying mentions a producer may use only on stated conditions. *Pur jus*: made without concentrated must and without water. *Effervescence naturelle* or *prise de mousse naturelle*: the sparkle comes solely from alcoholic fermentation, with no gas — exogenous or recovered from that fermentation — added at bottling. *Bouché*: at least 3 grams of carbon dioxide per litre, sold in sparkling-wine bottles of 37.5 centilitres or more closed with a mushroom cork. *Primeur* or *nouveau*, followed by the harvest year: at least 85% of the must volume from fruit picked in that year.

Primary authority France · recorded as at 2026-08-23 · Légifrance, JORF texte n° JORFTEXT000051223792, Union Nationale Interprofessionnelle Cidricole (UNICID), Jean-Louis Benassi

These are the words that do the work on a French label. Pur jus is the one a reader should look for: it is the only national mention that rules out both concentrate and water, and without it a cidre may lawfully be half reconstituted.

Two mentions describe who made the product rather than what is in it. *Fermier* requires every operation up to and including labelling to be carried out by or under the responsibility of a farmer on their own holding, from pure juice made exclusively from fruit harvested there, with the producer’s name and address on the label. *Artisanal*, in force from 1 January 2026, requires the same completeness of operation by a registered artisan on their own production sites, and the product to be pure juice. A *rosé* mention is defined for cider of pink colour pressed from a stated minimum quantity of red-fleshed apples, the quantity to be fixed by arrêté.

Primary authority France · recorded as at 2026-08-23 · Légifrance, JORF texte n° JORFTEXT000051223792, Union Nationale Interprofessionnelle Cidricole (UNICID), Jean-Louis Benassi

British labelling has no equivalent. “Farmhouse cider” in the United Kingdom is a description anybody may use; cidre fermier in France is a status with conditions attached, and one of them is that the cider be pure juice from the producer’s own fruit.

The national rules apply to all French cider and poiré, including production inside the appellations, which impose their own additional and stricter requirements on top. Meeting the national definition does not entitle a producer to use an appellation name.

Primary authority France; European Union · recorded as at 2026-08-23 · Légifrance, JORF texte n° JORFTEXT000051223792, European Union

About Cidre and poiré in French national law

Most French cider is not appellation cider. It is made outside the delimited areas, sold in supermarkets, and governed by national rules that apply to the whole market — and those rules are the reason the French baseline sits higher than the British one. They fix what the words cidre and poiré mean, constrain what may go into them, and require labelling that exposes production choices a buyer might care about.

The sweetness terms are the clearest illustration, and they changed in 2025. Brut, demi-sec, doux and now extra-brut are compositional categories written into law, so the word on the bottle corresponds to a measurable fact — but since 1 July 2025 the measurement is acquired alcoholic strength paired with density at 20 °C rather than grams of residual sugar. The interbranch body’s explanation of the change is a practical one: a producer can place a product with a hydrometer instead of commissioning a sugar analysis, and the bands were drawn to overlap so that a batch near a boundary does not fall through it. Anything published before 2025 describes the old sugar bands, which were repealed with the décret that contained them. In Britain, meanwhile, dry, medium and sweet remain conventions of the trade with no legal content at all, and two ciders labelled medium may differ substantially in residual sugar.

The mentions matter as much as the categories. Pur jus means no concentrate and no water; effervescence naturelle means the bubble is the ferment finishing rather than gas added at filling; bouché fixes both a carbon dioxide minimum and the bottle and closure it must be sold in; fermier requires the whole product, up to the label, to be the work of a farmer using fruit from their own holding. None of these has a British counterpart with any legal content, which is the practical reason a French supermarket cider label carries more checkable information than a British one.

The appellations sit on top of this floor rather than beside it. A Pays d’Auge or Cornouaille producer meets the national rules and then a great deal more; a producer who meets only the national rules makes cider that is lawful, honestly labelled and entitled to none of the appellation names. Neither position is a statement about quality, and the national tier includes both careful farmhouse work and large-scale industrial production.

Four traditions, one axisDry to sweet, with British, French, Spanish and German terms placed on the same axis. The boundaries do not line up.no perceptible sugarmarkedly sweetUnited KingdomDryMediumSweetFranceBrutDemi-secDouxSpainSecoSemisecoDulceGermanyTrockenHalbtrockenLieblichone sugar level, four names
Dry to sweet, with British, French, Spanish and German terms placed on the same axis. The boundaries do not line up.
Described in full
The axis
A single horizontal scale running from no perceptible sugar on the left to markedly sweet on the right. Each of the four traditions divides it into three named bands, and the bands are stacked so the divisions can be compared.
British terms
Dry, medium and sweet. They are customary rather than statutory: nothing in United Kingdom law fixes a sugar level for any of them, so two producers can label the same liquid differently and both be correct.
French terms
Brut, demi-sec and doux. These are the only ones of the four fixed by law, in the French cider decree, and they are defined in grams of sugar per litre rather than by taste.
Spanish terms
Seco, semiseco and dulce. They apply chiefly to sparkling sidra; sidra natural, the Asturian still cider, is fermented out and sits at the far dry end of the axis without needing a sweetness term at all.
German terms
Trocken, halbtrocken and lieblich, borrowed from German wine terminology. Traditional Apfelwein is dry, so the sweeter terms mostly describe modern and commercial products.
The vertical guide
One dotted line crosses all four scales at the same point on the axis, and the band it lands in is drawn with a heavier outline. The same drink is medium in Britain and demi-sec in France — both middle terms — but dulce in Spain and lieblich in Germany, which are the sweetest terms those traditions have.
Why the disagreement is real
The traditions did not divide a shared scale differently by accident. Each set of terms grew up describing the ciders that tradition actually made, and brut covers a range that British practice would split between dry and medium.
A caution on the positions
The band edges drawn here are indicative except for the French ones. Perceived sweetness is not sugar alone: acidity suppresses it and carbonation sharpens it, so the same sugar level tastes drier in a sharp sparkling cider.

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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.

Where to go next

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.