Don’t forget to check whether they were picked by nude vestal virgins under the full moon while flutists played in the orchard.
Mark you’re totally right. Seems like a lot were left out.
Seckels are an obvious miss. Those are all over the place. Small and sometimes tasty but usually hard, tart, and small - rather useless really. OK for cooking but they’re a pain because they’re so small. The Muscadet of the pear world.
French butter pears are another, rather sweet and when ripe they get soft pretty fast. Not worth seeking out. Kind of the CA Chardonnay of the pear world.
Starkrimson is probably the most unique in terms of flavor as it’s almost floral so it would be a really great one for descriptions except that nobody would know what the hell it is. Gets soft too. A little goes a long way. Kind of like the Gwertz of the pear world.
Forelle is starting to get close to an apple, by analogy in the way a Russet apple is reminiscent of a pear (which is why I think they’re some of the best apples). You don’t see them all that often.
Red Bartlett is a little like the Green Bartlett but can be sweeter, or at least taste sweeter - I don’t know the sugar content. Actually, I think several of the varieties have red versions, so you gotta go thru those too. The Merlot of the pear world.
Concorde isn’t grown all that much and I suspect that’s because it doesn’t have as much flavor as some of the others. Maybe because of bruising or keeping qualities too - I don’t really know. Looks a little like a Bosc with the skin of a Green Bartlett, but doesn’t taste as good as either. Kind of like the Viognier of the pear world - the appeal fades fast and you’re wondering why you didn’t just make the choice and open a Semillon or a Muscat.
And of course, Bosc rules but he has those covered. Best for baking, for eating, for poaching, and we used to use them for pear Tatin because they’re firm enough to hold their shape perfectly. Only problem is that they’re hard to arrange on the tart because they’re so pointy - we used to cut the ends off so they’d fill in better.
Those are the only ones I could think of off the top but I’m sure there are many others. Whether they’d make useful tasting notes by appearing in a list of other descriptors is a completely different story. I think not. For example, people use the description “rose petal”. I have 48 of them growing in the back, most are fragrant, and each fragrance is different. There’s no such thing as “rose petal”. But I get the idea when someone says it. Would it be any good if I said it was reminiscent of Mons Tillier in the fall? Who would know what that meant?
I agree with John about the sense of humor. This is pretty hilarious! Later today I’m going to taste maybe 60-70 wines and then I’m going to dinner. Will be hunting for the Comice pear notes in each!
What happens if you taste pears on a root day?
If you seek Comice but detect only supermarket Bartlett, it is a clear indication that you are not a “supertaster”.
And as for the rest of you, please say what you will, except do NOT refer to “NATURAL” pears, or Parker will get drunk and make another video, in which he will tell us that (a) CdPs, not pears, are “natural”, (b) only sodomites use the term “natural wine”, and (c) all grand cru Burgundy is dosed with a lot worse shit than Megapurple, and should be avoided by his acolytes at all costs…
Great post, Tom, which I would augment only with the idea that “sitting with a wine” is the only way to make any rational assessment of it. (Actually, the only way to make a rational assessment of the particular BOTTLE before you, but I will leave that dilemma for another day.) Of course, if the price that one pays for that is having Suckling sitting in your cellar and sucking down your wine for 6 hours, well, I guess that you could make an exception and let him spit. And run.
And Greg, please do not leave out the tiny, beloved Madernassa pear of the greater Alba, Italy area. I suspect that it is the ONLY pear that one could detect in Nebbiolo-based wines…
Well, Bill…I’ve been reading Asimov’s new book and I think he does a pretty good job of this. In a dry/matter-of-fact way, he totally ridicules Molesworth for his repeated
use of “mandura tobacco”…whatever the heck that is.
I think Richard’s idea of a pear tasting is a great one…I’d attend when he takes the PAP (Pear Advocates and Producers) show on the road to SantaFe. Not for sharpening
my pear descriptors in my long/boring TN’s…but just to increase my appreciation of pears. You know…I have followed pears from the very start!!! 
Tom
It seems to me that a more interesting exercise would be to taste wine grapes picked from various sites and at various stages of ripeness.
I did that during my walk every day this summer and fall, Frank, with Nebbiolo, Barbera, Dolcetto and occasionally Arneis. I took no notes and I claim no superior knowledge from the experience, but it was fun. (As an aside, I find it hilarious that the dominant red eating grape in the Piemonte is the “uva americana”, sometimes called the “uva fragolina”, which is none other than your Welch’s Concord grape!)
Either that or the orchard owners have taken lessons from the folks in Montalcino and have substituted the primitivo of pears for the sangiovese grosso.
You need an avatar, Bill. May I suggest:
This seems like an unessisarily mean spirited thread.
I commend Richard for doing this tasting. There’s a few times each year that I buy some various fruits for the sole purpose of “reminding myself” what they taste like.
For all the criticism that some folks like to throw around about people using specific descriptors in their TN’s (implying the writer is full of shit), I’d think that a tasting like this would be widely applauded, if not at least appreciated/respected, in a community of wine geeks.
Of course, I suspect Bill’s opening missive is closely related to his feelings about tasting notes, in general.
Good for Richard
PWI
Or perhaps this:
There’s more wood in those pants than on the ship…
I couldn’t agree more, Berry.
Klapp’s OP was brutally condescending and laced with rumor mongering. Perhaps I’m mistaken, but the only humor I could read into his OP was his own laughter at what Richard does for a living, and Richard’s pursuit of honing his skills so that he may provide the most accurate note he can so that readers may get a better picture of the flavor profile of the wines he’s tasting. We can debate the necessity of specific descriptors, and even whether there is merit to tasting v. drinking. That said, it’s what Richard does for a living, and he’s trying to improve his craft. Belittling that effort is pure bully mentality, and blatantly condescending. In addition, if you think he’s the only person that’s done something like that in the wine industry, you’re mistaken. Just about every MS or MW I’ve read or spoken with has gone out of their way to nail down specific notes, such as the difference between certain types of dates (Molesworth about a week ago), soil, berries, apples, oranges, oak barrels, leather, meats, and on and on. I understand that Klapp has little respect for wine writers, but as a professional, he ought to respect efforts to become the best at your profession. When your profession is describing wine, you ought to strive for the most accurate description possible.
KJJ, you are SO right…I mean to be blantantly condescending. It comes with the territory when you pop the bubble of pretensiousness. I am flatly saying that the human nose and palate are NOT capable of detecting 5, or 10, or 20 varieties of pears in a frigging glass of wine. Period. Not Parker, not Tanzer, not Galloni, not Molesworth, not Leve, not Jennings. It is one thing to use generally understood and useful terms to describe a wine. “Tannic”. “Acidic”. “Light ruby in color”. And, yes, a hint of pear, lemon, citrus, cedar, truffle, cigar, rock. And even there, my tolerance of tannins may be far greater than yours, so maybe me deeming something to be “mildly tannic” makes it completely undrinkable for you.
I am not the arbiter of where you draw the line on descriptors, but for damn sure a line can and should be drawn. “Linden flower” and “Kaffir lime” are two that I had to call BS on. Five or more types of pears gets me there, too. There was no laughter at what Richard does for a living because, the last time he commented on the subject, it was NOT tasting wines and spitting out tasting notes. I am belittling an activity that is radically unlikely to improve the craft of Mr. Jennings’ hobby (or perhaps profession-in-waiting). If he has any common sense, he will learn from the mistakes of the alleged professionals that have come before him and burnt out their palates with the seriatim run, sip and spit exercise for thousands of wines each year, followed by the endless generation of meaningless scores and tasting notes. It does not work. The whole deal is the emperor’s new clothes. We have all been snookered by a bunch of fellow amateurs who hold themselves out as superior to all others. We have wasted a lot of time reading their garbage instead of tasting wine for ourselves. And at the end of the day, it still comes down to that anyway. We read the garbage, bought the wine, drank it, and accepted it or rejected it, didn’t we? And if that is the case, have the tasting-note middlemen done us such yeoman service after all?
It is a free country. Richard is free to keep on keeping on, as are all who loves themselves some tasting notes. But I am just as free to lay waste to what I see as an exercise of questionable utility on its best day. What do I recommend for those who enjoy the tasting and writing more than the drinking? Hone your writing skills, not your descriptors. Taste fewer wines on multiple occasions over extended periods of time. Notice how the color, aromas and flavors of each changes over time and differs from bottle to bottle. Maybe pick a specific wine region and develop true expertise in its limited number of wines. Then put pen to paper and write something that intelligent people can read and rely upon, even if only as a buoy arounsd which to navigate their own wine ships (since we seem to have a nautical theme going above). And Brian, while I appreciate the flattering photo, I must admit that I am not packing a weapon like the one pictured. The sword, I mean…
+1 Richard’s pear tasting is entirely consistent with his approach to wine appreciation. It’s a reductive approach I don’t embrace, and clearly most folks here don’t either, but is it really worth this kind of derision, anymore than anyone else’s approach to understanding and writing about wine? I’ve slammed Parker plenty of times before (right alongside Mr. Klapp), but my beef is with the bogus code of ethics, not with his clinical style. Richard may share elements of Parker’s approach, but he’s nothing if not an earnest and enthusiastic student of wine, like most all of us here. Trolling him like this (and the OP is definitely more derisive than funny by any measure) is just uncool.