YOU can say what you like about Napoleon Bonaparte, but he wasn’t one for dishing out idle praise. When he reportedly described perry as ‘the English Champagne’, it was a sparkling endorsement of the doughty orchardists of Gloucestershire, Herefordshire and Worcestershire. The palaces of imperial France were a long way from the fields of the Wye Valley—nonetheless, a bottle of fine, bittersweet bubbles was seemingly enough to bridge the divide.
Perry has history, provenance and prestige. It is, in very basic terms, an alcoholic beverage made from fermented pear juice: perry is to pears what wine is to grapes and cider is to apples. However, although wine and cider have legions of international devotees, perry occupies a much more specialised place in public (un)consciousness. It had a seat at the top table during the Georgian era, but has since experienced periods of near-obsoletion.
