Pineau des Charentes is a Sweet and reasonably strong "Vin de Liqueur" from the Charente (Cognac) region of western France. It is made by adding Cognac brandy from the previous year's distillation (or earlier) to fresh Grape must from the current Vintage. By law, the must must be freshly harvested and, although it may have undergone partial Fermentation, its sugar content at the time of "Mutage" (when the brandy is added) must be greater than 170 g per litre. The Cognac itself must have an Alcohol content of at least 60 % and must have been kept in casks before being used.
The resulting blend has an alcoholic strength of 16-22 % and a sugar content of at least 125 g/l. Any fermentation will have been stopped by the high alcohol content and, as the must remains essentially unfermented, it retains all its "grape" aromas and - ideally - the Varietal characteristics of the grapes used, which develop over time. All Pineau des Charentes is cellar-aged, although this varies according to the type of Pineau produced. White pineau - the most common - must spend at least 18 months in the cellar, 12 months of which are spent in oak barrels.
Grenache noir is a grape variety that originated in Spain. It produces a variety of grape specially used for the elaboration of wine. It is rare to find this grape to eat on our tables. This variety of grape is characterized by medium to large bunches, and grapes of medium size. Grenache noir can be found in many vineyards: South West, Cognac, Bordeaux, Provence & Corsica, Languedoc & Roussillon, Rhone Valley, Loire Valley, Savoie & Bugey, Beaujolais.
sweet wines from the region of Pineau des Charentes go well with generally quite well with dishes of beef, lamb or pork such as recipes of chili con carne, shoulder of lamb in a crust or the real vegetables stuffed in the provençal way.
The launch of the 2022 Collection takes the total number of Last Drop releases to 27 since the company was founded by drinks industry veterans Tom Jago and James Espey in 2008. Tom’s daughter Rebecca Jago is now the company’s MD. This year’s releases include The Last Drop’s first Japanese whisky: a blended malt that includes whisky from the fabled Hanyu distillery, taken from the beginning and end of its brief lifespan (1980-2000), as well as malts from other unidentified Japanese distilleries. ...
Described by Courvoisier as ‘daring’, ‘visionary’ and ‘a first-of-its-kind collaboration’, Courvoisier Mizunara was created by the house’s recently-retired maître de chai, Patrice Pinet, and Shinji Fukuyo, chief blender of Japanese whisky maker Suntory. The project dates back to 2015, when the president of Suntory visited Courvoisier at Jarnac shortly after Suntory took over Beam Global, the Cognac house’s then owner, in a deal worth US$16bn. Pinet expressed an interest in experimenting with miz ...
The focus of the symposium, unsurprisingly, was on the challenges posed by climate change. As if to illustrate the immediacy of the threat, the symposium took place during a heatwave, with temperatures of over 40°C in Bordeaux and extreme weather events recorded across the coountry: parts of southwest France saw violent storms and winds of 112kph on the evening of 20 June, while vineyards across the Médoc and St-Emilion were damaged by hailstones ‘the size of golfballs’. As Olivier Bernard of D ...
