TNs: Craft Vermouths *UPDATED with SAQ Acquisitions and Priorat Natur*

EDIT Updated with pics of my entire Vermouth collection after a massive acquisition at the SAQ in Montreal this past week. New TN added at the end for Priorat Natur Vermut Blanco from Spain.

Berserkers,

After recently trying and posting on a rare Barolo Chinato, I decided to take the next logical step and see if I could hunt down some high-end versions of the only wine I am aware of with similar flavors: Vermouth. Vermouth is a classic fortified aromatised wine infused with herbs, spices and botanicals (which is a nice term for plant barks, seeds and roots i.e. the scraps). That sweet spicy herbal flavor is also found in Amaro and Chinatto soda. While there are endless recipes for it, the main components are usually bitter orange peel, vanilla, mint, coriander, baking spices (cinnamon, cloves, nutmeg) and quinine and/or wormwood aka absinthe which give the mixture that distinctive mentholated medicinal taste and aroma to any product that uses it and turns plain club soda into tonic water.

It’s far too generous to call Vermouth a wine. It’s actually a wine cocktail the same way that Sangria is. The only difference is its use of spices and botanicals instead of fruit to add the additional flavor. The other problem with vermouth is that 99% of it is crap. Most every Vermouth you’ve probably ever had in your life has a cheap wine base, loads of sugar, loads of caramelized sugar on top of it to turn it from a white wine into a “red” wine, and is fortified with cheap alcohol as well. Its popularity in cocktails seems to have only added further incentive to its cheap mass production. For these reasons, it is the only wine category I have never touched at all until just recently.

My internet research shows that just as craft whiskey and craft beer have started a revolution that is turning the masses away from cheap mass-manufactured versions, so is there a craft Vermouth movement. Furthermore, it has a highly respected drinking culture associated with it in Europe, as opposed to just being treated as a cheap cocktail addition like it is here in North America. Craft Vermouth producers can be found in Spain, Italy, France, the United States and Canada. I recently had the good fortune to sample some of these and I’ve come to share my thoughts:

NORDESIA VERMU BLANCO:

OVERALL: Least sweet, most aromatic of all Vermouths tried; soft texture; Albariño grapes don’t stand out very much.

From Spain. This Vermouth has a light caramel brown complexion. The aromas are immediately evident. It’s got a very soft texture in the mouth that reminds me of icewine. It’s not very sweet and so it’s quite balanced between the botanicals and the sweetness. The Albariño grapes don’t lend much to the wine, however. There is no tell-tale salinity or crispness or acidity. In fact, the wine seems to be going out of its way to dull the terroir and characteristics of the Albariño despite the fact that it being the base wine is one of its main selling points. Very smooth, a touch complex, highly aromatic but could use a touch more acidity.

DILLON’S SMALL BATCH DISTILLERS SWEET VERMOUTH

Overall: Impressively balanced Vermouth that uses all local ingredients including some of which Dillon grows themselves.

From Ontario, Canada. Burnished reddish brown in color. Strong wormwood and vanilla aromas and flavors, but there’s also a surprising amount of fruitiness to it as well. Sweet but not overly so, and a fair amount of that sweetness seems to be from fruit, not from the addition of raw sugar. A turn of the bottle to the back and side labels indicate the wine uses late harvested Viognier as well as grape brandy from the Niagara, Ontario region. That explains that. This is extremely well-balanced Vermouth. It’s not as powerful overall as the others, however. Still, this is an achievement for a Canadian wine.

LUSTAU VERMUT DE JEREZ

Overall: Two high quality Sherry bases and a small but decent choice of aromatics yield a greatly integrated and surprisingly soft and contemplative Vermouth. No added sugar or alcohol a plus, but also could stand to be a touch more aromatic.

From Jerez, Spain. Per their website, Lustau forgoes the usual method of macerating the brandy with the botanical ingredients and then using that to fortify the wine base and added sugar. They start with 10 year old solera Amontillado and 10 year old Pedro Ximenez sherries which have already been fortified and they macerate those directly. These are then blended together for the final product. Without the need for further fortification, the cream Sherry characteristics come shining through. The aromas are a nice blend of Amaro spices and Amontillado nuttiness with a touch of burnt toffee caramel.

In the mouth, a smooth texture allows sweet nut,caramel, toffee and fruity raisin flavors to shine for a second before the bitter aromatics come through… though nowhere near as strong as I expected they would. This Vermouth is far more natural due to its composition and recipe which I do appreciate already being a Sherry lover… but the tradeoff of going all natural without added sugar or alcohol seems to be are somewhat fighting to make themselves known against the already impressive Amontillado and PX characteristics. To be fair, this makes perfect sense. Lustau steeps the botanicals in the 15% wines which have less pure alcohol and therefore less extraction power than a brandy would.

That said, this is still an impressive Vermouth that is delicate, contemplative even, well-balanced and a whole that is far greater than the sum of its parts. It does not taste like a plain Cream Sherry with added botanical flavoring on top of it. It is extremely well-integrated and the dried fruit flavor is very different from the ripe fruit flavor of the other Vermouths tried so far.

VILLA PAPILLANO TREGENDA VERMOUTH

Overall: Intense super cherry fruity Vermouth with high sweetness, acidity, fruit, botanicals and alcohol. Very fresh botanicals. Extremely high quality, but may come off more as a dessert wine to some. This is not your father’s or even your grandfather’s Vermouth.

From Italy. I came across this Vermouth purely by luck and I’m very glad I did. I had dinner last night at Montecito and they had just received a shipment of this. My eye was immediately drawn to the bottle because it used a Vino-lok stopper and not a cheap T-cork stopper. This producer clearly wants you to know you aren’t about to drink the same old cheap Cinzano or Martini Vermouth. The back label proudly states all ingredients and lets you know that they use late harvested Albana grapes from Italy (not to be confused with Albariño grapes from Spain like the Nordesia above) so you know this is going to be sweet.

Aromas of sour cherry and spices on the nose, it’s almost Burgundy like the fruit aroma is strong. On the palate, super sweet and intense sour cherry flavors immediately attack and then you are hit with the very fresh botanical taste which is super intense and then finishes short as the sweet cherry flavor takes over and finishes things out. Far, far more intense cherry fruit than even the Barolo Chinato I had which had nowhere near as intense the cherry flavors as is found here, this despite being based on a native white grape from Italy. Despite the 20% ABV being the highest of all the Vermouths I’ve had, this also paradoxically has the lightest body of them all as well.

So here’s the interesting thing about this particular Vermouth. Based on sugar being clearly indicated as the second ingredient and the fact that its color is dark reddish brown in the glass despite Albana being a white grape, it is clear that Papillano made this Vermouth in the classic style: macerate your brandy, add to wine base and sugar and you have Vermouth. However, they have turned this all on its head by using top-notch ingredients instead of cheap ones and created a Vermouth they are obviously very proud of and rightfully so.

The only possible criticism that you could give is that it’s extremely sweet, certainly the sweetest of all the Vermouths I tried by a long shot. However, it also has strong acidity and botanicals to counter-balance this. I would approach this as more of a dessert wine than anything else and wouldn’t dream of wasting it in a cocktail. Very classy high-end stuff indeed.

Taking notes on the ones above … thank you Tran.

You might enjoy this New York Times article if you have not seen it:

I’m a big fan of Matthiasson’s vermouth - you might enjoy!

You have to try some of the ones I use for manhattans next time you come down, shadow boxer.

Hopefully one of these is from Andrew Quady. I read a couple of articles that credited him as one of the people who started the craft Vermouth movement and he coincidentally makes some of my favorite dessert wine with his orange and black muscat based Essencia and Elysium.

This goes straight into my “I never knew that” file!

Thank you for that superlative post and my highest compliment: you made this hobby better!

Kudos!

I’m a big fan of red vermouth and usually have a bottle on the go. I’m not sure about the ‘craft’ but if it helps as a quality differentiator…

Has anyone tried the Quady Vya? I have a bottle at home but I’m trying to finish up my Carpano Antica first.

Thanks for the detailed notes. I’ve had some fantastic Spanish and German(!) vermouths in London, but sadly don’t recall their names. It would be great if aperitif and digestif culture were to take off like craft cocktails have.

cool thread. I knew nothing before and learned a lot. And that Villa Papillano is nowhere to be found.

Very cool notes, Tran!!!

I am interested in the Vermouth derived from Sherry. The various sites I have encountered that discuss Vermouth stress its historical purpose of being a medicinal beverage and more resistant to oxidation than traditionally made (white/opened) wines.

I would like to see more notes on Vermouth posted here, especially as a stand-alone drink. Here’s a cool website that talks about Vermouth…

Uncouth vermouth is a nice one, surprisingly dry but flavorful, they have different varieties. A little pricey though.

I like the Primitivo Quiles vermouth from Spain, it’s a sweet red vermouth similar in style to the Carpano Antica. Very nice as an aperitif on its own on the rocks with a citrus twist, can also stand up to a strong bourbon in a Manhattan.

The Boissiere extra dry vermouth is also nice, had some floral qualities; I think the bottle I had a taste from was perhaps open too long since it had some oxidized sherry-like flavors but I like that so wasn’t a flaw to me.

Massican makes a nice dry vermouth from Italian grape varietals, interesting in that it’s a vintage offering. good in a white negroni.

DOLIN Vermouth de Chambery

OVERALL: More sugar syrup than an actual Vermouth. Pass this one up.

As if the cheap $14.15 CDN price didn’t give it away, I should’ve known this one would be problematic when all-knowing all-seeing Google couldn’t even tell me what the base wine used to make this so-called Vermouth actually is.

Near black in the glass, heavy nose of caramelized sugar. Uh-oh. In the mouth, this is all caramel sugar flavor with nary a hint of fruit to be detected. Even two large ice cubes in the glass failed to tone down the syrupy sweetness. There are some Vermouth spices there but they are completely overwhelmed by the sugar.

Unfortunately, this is a disaster of a Vermouth. Far, far too heavy on the caramelized sugar and even just a little restraint would’ve taken this much farther. As far away from the Tregenda as you can possibly get.

CARPANO ANTICA FORMULA VERMOUTH

OVERALL: Quality ingredients lead to a quality Vermouth, but note the emphasis on the creamy vanilla above other spices.

This is quite a historic little Vermouth and you can tell quality ingredients went into it even without Google research, as it pours red in color like an actual wine into the glass. Nose is filled with fragrant vanilla and a few spices. Turns out that Carpano uses actual Sangiovese wine as their base. Nice.

In the mouth, sweet cherry vanilla flavors immediately grab you. The emphasis here is on the vanilla above even the wormwood and menthol. This sort of threw me off initially as I was expecting it to be like the Tragenda and have much higher acidity than it actually did. Once I got passed that, however, it was a very pleasant and balanced Vermouth. It does lean very heavily towards the vanilla, however, which means you may want to treat this is more of a dessert wine than an aperitif.

This is really good. I believe the Tragenda is a step above it due to the high acidity and lighter sweetness but you certainly can’t go wrong with this and like the Tragenda I wouldn’t waste it in a cocktail, either.

Tran,

I don’t know if you can find it, but Matthiasson (CA winery) makes a very interesting Vermouth.

Mancino has very good inexpensive vermouths.

Matthiasson takes orders on their site for their Vermouth when they have bottles in stock - not sure where Tran is located though.

Tran,

I am trying to learn more about vermouth for my work, and am enjoying experimenting with it as an aperitif. I am curious about your Dolin notes, though; even given that it was a sweet vermouth, you found too much sweetness? Dolin has a pretty good reputation, but I’ve never had the sweet version.

My thoughts as well Olver. Dolin is my go-to for mixed drinks. Never tried it as an aperitif.

Try Vermut Negre Vermouth from Spain. It’s barrel aged solera and black from unripened walnuts. It was an epiphany for me.

David, Oliver,

Dolin was one of the first vermouth the craft world grabbed. That trend has passed and now they are reaching for other producers, at least here in Seattle that has a strong craft cocktail movement. Like I said earlier, try Mancino, the Rouge is exceptionally good with a bit of soda water, and Carpano Antica and Punt e Mes are go to calls in craft world too.

Ok. That does not suddenly make Dolin bad.