Even hardcore wine geeks won’t blame you for not having heard of Pineau de Charentes. But the virtues of this French mulled wine are too excellent to languish in the shadow of port! Pineau de Charentes can have an incomparable mix of freshness, acidity and creamy honey sweetness, and in older specimens the wine can develop a deep and almost gloomy complexity, laced with dark rancio notes as in toad-old tawny.
This Pineau de Charentes from Pierre Ferrand is aged for over 12 months, and the result is a light and delicious aperitif or an exciting companion to fresh desserts.
Colour: Amber with golden glints
Aroma: A cornucopia of honey, quince, peaches, figs and almonds.
Tasting notes: Fruity and full-bodied, but at the same time fresh, with a fine acidity that balances the sweetness perfectly.
Serving suggestions: Drink chilled. In Cognac often as an aperitif, but also works well with the not too sweet desserts.
Maison Ferrand, led by spirits guru Alexandre Gabriel, is the company behind some of the most essential cognacs, rums and gins in the modern spirits landscape. Under the umbrella there are, among others, Pierre Ferrand Cognac, Plantation Rum and Citadelle Gin, rum under the Kaniché brand and cognac under the name Claude Chatelier. In addition, a number of luxury wines are produced, of which their curaçao in particular has caused excitement in cocktail bars worldwide. The company is broad, but common to every drop is an unwavering dedication to quality.
Maison Ferrand was created with one mission: to preserve the gastronomic treasures of France. Alexandre has made a virtue of breathing life into old and long-forgotten traditions, and the eternally eager Frenchman is known, among other things, for dusting off and buying up old archives from bankrupt houses, in order to learn more about the production methods of the past. But at Ferrand you also understand the value of renewal, and today innovation is valued as highly as tradition. This is clearly seen in the Citadelle Gin brand. Getting permission to distill gin in Cognac required five years of bureaucratic struggle against the area’s stubborn spirit giants.
Since then, the company has spread beyond France’s borders, and today Ferrand is perhaps best known for its series of rums. Under the name Plantation, Alexandre buys rums from many different countries in the Caribbean and stores them in France in cognac casks. In the series there are rums for both the beginner and the connoisseur, for both the daiquiri and the Glencairn glass. In 2017, the company bought the Barbados distillery West Indies Rum Distillery, and now also has its own rum production from scratch.
