Tagging @JulienHuxley here because he is the Ice Cider admin according to our outdated admin roster.
I have recently encountered a German dessert Perry [1] that was made via the use of dried pears [2], similar to a Trockenbeerenauslese [3] (where sugar concentration happens through sunlight and noble rot). This Perry is listed as a Perry in our database because the must did not come from frozen pears. However, in terms of character this will be much closer to an Ice Perry than to a Perry - after all, the defining characteristic is that there was some sugar concentration of the must. Likewise, a Trockenbeerenauslese wine is much closer to an Eiswein than to other wines.
One can of course argue that Ice Cider/Ice Perry should only contain products where the sugar concentration came from freezing the fruit, but then again we also list Givres as Ice Ciders, which are basically eisbocked Ciders and not Ciders obtained from must of frozen fruit. The sugar concentration still happens through freezing, but after fermentation. Using dried / noble-rot fruits at least gives you a concentrated must before fermentation.
@SinH4 there are other admins that have taken interest in dealing with ice ciders now, so I may not be the only one to chime in. I have very limited knowledge of the types of wines you are referencing but based on your original post above, I would say it is definitely all right to list them under ice cider/ice Perry.
The equivalent I can think of here in Quebec is cidre de feu (literally fire cider) where the juices are not concentrated by ice at all but by slow evaporation. The end product is basically ice cider to the untrained eye (sweet boozy concentrated cider) they simply didn’t follow the costly “pure” process. We list those here as ice ciders. Cheers!
I knew our roster was outdated, but still you know much more about Ice Cider than most admins do.
That makes a lot of sense.
My knowledge of wine is also very limited, but I was encouraged to ask this question here because I mentioned this to one of our admins (MoritzF, who does not seem to be very active in the forums) who happens to be a wine merchant by occupation, and he thought we should definitely list this as Ice Cider/Ice Perry, and not as regular Perry. He might be influenced by a wine-style way of looking at things, though.
There are different methods for producing Ice Ciders anyway: let the apple freeze on the tree, pick the apples, keep them in storage till the very cold season; juice them and freeze the juice either naturally or with a freezer.
According to a sales rep of La Face Cachee de la Pomme, only one of their Ice Ciders is 100% from frozen apples on the tree.
From that it sounds that the other methods are more common; if I remember I read an article from Eden Cidery where they explicitly explained how they freeze the juice and then thaw to extract the concentrate.
From the above, if the flavor profile of the dried pear product you mention is in line with an Ice Cider, I think it may deserve inclusion.
