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["Lon J. Rombough" <lonrom@hevanet.com>]

There are varieties selected specifically for perry. They have high sugar and high tannins.  Two names I remember are "Butt" and "Hendre Huffcap".   One oddity of many of them is that new trees can take a very long time to come into bearing.  I have one that took over 15 years.  The trees are supposed to be very long lived, though.
-Lon Rombough
NEW grape pruning video: http://www.bunchgrapes.com/dvd.html View a short, low resolution clip here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8Q58zFY0B1M
Grapes, writing, consulting, my book, The Grape Grower, at http://www.bunchgrapes.com  Winner of the Garden Writers Association "Best Talent in Writing" award for 2003. 
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On Oct 12, 2009, at 7:48 AM, Kieran &/or Donna wrote:

I think most of the perry pears come from England, so not much blight res 
nor hardiness.   I don't think you'd have to worry about blight nearly as 
much as we do here.  I think any of the crunchy pears would be fine for 
perry, I note that Burford is mentioned as possibly good for perry.  I don't 
know about hardiness though.  I'm very interested in the SD release 'Okolo" 
which ought to be plenty hardy and should at least start out crunchy.  Get 
yourself some good hardy rootstock, get it in the ground and graft it to 
some hardy vars.  See corvallis's website, I think they have a hardy pear 
list.  Donna

http://www.ars.usda.gov/Main/docs.htm?docid=11372