This month’s booze reviews have included a rum (this Amrut) and an armagnac (this Cardinat). Might as well make it a full month of non-whisky reviews. Here now is another brandy, albeit a Calvados. I’ve not reviewed a Calvados in a while—the last one was this 15 yo from Domaine Montreuil, which I reviewed in October 2023. Today’s review is also of a 15 yo, though the age is not mentioned on the label of this release from Toutain. The label only says “Hors d’Age” but it seems pretty common knowledge that the brandy inside is a minimum15 years old—that’s what pretty much everyone who sells it notes. Toutain sits on the border of the Pays d’Auge production region of Calvados and the question of which region their Calvados is actually from is a little complicated. I purchased this bottle—along with another of their releases—in Europe some years ago. At the time their releases were not sold in the US. Now, however, they are; indeed, their Hors d’Age is available if you look around online—though at a price that is quite a bit higher than I paid for it. At any rate, this means that my review will not be as useless as usual for my predominantly US-based readers. Let’s get to it. Continue reading
Tag Archives: Pays d’Auge
Domaine Montreuil 15 (for Astor Wines)
I said in Sunday’s look ahead to the month on the blog that Twin Cities restaurant reports would be posted on Tuesdays as per usual, with booze reviews on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays as per usual—and here I am, just two days later, already a liar. I’m afraid I didn’t have the time on Sunday or Monday to resize the photographs from this weekend’s eating out, and so here is the second brandy review of the week. The series began yesterday with a very old Armagnac. It continues today with a considerably less old, though far from very young Calvados. I noted yesterday that it had been a long time since my last Armagnac review. The same is even more true of my last Calvados review: the last one was posted more than 7 years ago. That was a review of an excellent Michel Huard and in the comments on that review you can read a spirited argument with my old nemesis, Sku. As it happens, Sku was the source of the sample of the Calvados I am reviewing today, which was an exclusive for Astor Wines in New York. I can’t remember when he gave it to me, but I can tell you I am disappointed by how conventional the sample label he made for it is. I guess he sold out. Continue reading
Domaine Hubert, 2006 (Calvados)
After two weeks of Armagnac let’s go back to Calvados Wednesdays for a bit. You may recall that my first Calvados review was of the new release of Domaine Hubert from K&L. You may also recall that I expressed some skepticism about the claim that this was essentially the same as their original release of Domaine Hubert, which had a vintage stated and was 6-7 years old. It certainly didn’t taste like it was very much more than four years old. Well, Florin, winner of the second season of Celebrity Apprentice, is a big fan of that 2006 Hubert and insisted that I try that one as well. (By the way, I’d sent him a sample of the new Hubert and he shared my reservations about it, though he did like it more.) He gave me a sample and here I am now with a review. I tasted it alongside a pour of the recent version. It couldn’t be done blind because the difference is obvious before you even taste them: the 2006 vintage is much darker—make of that what you will…
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Adrien Camut 6 (Calvados)
Camut is perhaps the most famous and renowned of all the Calvados houses. As per Charles Neal, the family has been making Calvados for seven generations now and Adrien Camut was instrumental after the 1960s in the promotion of Calvados as a spirit to be taken seriously. He also apparently made a number of technical innovations in the production process that led to other producers asking him to make stills for them. (He passed away in 1989—the domaine is now run by his grandsons.) But Camut is not just important historically; their Calvados has a very high reputation. In fact, when I began to express an interest in Calvados, more than one person—Sku among them—urged me to try Camut as one that I would be sure to like. I’m now finally getting around to it. I’ll be curious to see if the pride of the Pays d’Auge challenges my current preference for the pear-heavy Calvados of the Domfrontais. My understanding is that most producers in the Pays d’Auge use far less than the 30% poire content that is the maximum allowed for the Pays d’Auge appelation—and given the fact that pears are mentioned not at all in Neal’s entry on Camut in his otherwise comprehensive book, I suspect that Camut might be one of the producers who use no pear at all. If you can confirm or dispute this please write in below. Continue reading
Domaine Hubert, (Calvados)
As I said on July 1, I am very new to Calvados. As such even though I’ve already made disclaimers about the nature of my Calvados reviews (there’ll be at least three this month), I’m going to make them again.
In brief, I am the furthest thing from an expert on Calvados. I am also pretty far from being an expert on Scotch whisky but in that case I know a decent amount about the history of Scotch whisky; I know quite a bit about different styles of Scotch whisky and the likely effects of variables in the production process; I know a fair bit about a bunch of the major distilleries and the profiles they’ve produced over time; and I certainly know when a whisky has flaws (whether it overcomes them or not) and when it has achieved very desirable characteristics. In the case of Calvados, I currently know only whether the one I am drinking appeals to me. And since my palate is conditioned by single malt whisky (which is also very relevant to my reviews of American whiskey) it may well be the case that what appeals or doesn’t appeal to me about a particular Calvados may have little relationship to the qualities looked for or scorned by connoisseurs of Calvados. (Among other things, I also don’t know what the plural of Calvados is: one Calvados, two Calvadoses? Calvadosi? Calvadeaux?) Continue reading