Berserkers,
Here’s an interesting sweet wine I found that straddles several different worlds. It’s a Pommeau de Normandie from France. It’s made with the same Mutage blending style that Port wine as well as French fortified wines are made: fresh juice is fortified with distilled spirit and then aged in oak barrels. Of course, Port and French Fortifieds have the advantage of being able to use complex blends of several different grapes. Calvados, however, has the same advantage when it comes to apples as over 200 different types of apples are grown in the Calvados region of France. So any argument that traditional fruit isn’t complex enough to make alcoholic beverages as complex as wine goes out the window. Let’s have a taste:
COMPTE LOUIS DE LAURITSON POMMEAU DE NORMANDIE
SUMMARY: A fortified apple wine from France that dials up the complexity while toning down the sweetness and, oddly enough, the apple flavor itself.
Golden light brown in the glass with a little hint of cloudiness. Surprisingly, there is virtually no apple aroma on the nose. Rather, vanilla and baking spices hit up front. I really had to inhale deeply to finally get a whiff of baked apple aroma. Quite full-bodied and viscous which is of course to be expected. On the palate, the biggest surprise is that this is nowhere near as sweet as I expected it to taste, despite the supposed 180 g/L of residual sugar. Instead, I get mildy sweet rich baked apple with baking spices and hot black pepper on the finish. Very mellow and complex for what it is. Don’t go into this expecting tart apple cider flavors. It leans much more towards Calvados. A pleasant change of pace.
