Parhelia Cask #11 La Cave Normande 2015 Calvados Domfrontais 50.9% - (700ml)

Importer's Notes:

Calvados Domfrontais is the pear Calvados appellation. Where the Pays d'Auge is apple and pot still, the Domfrontais—a narrow band of bocage on the Manche/Orne border—is built on perry pears from tall, old standard trees, and on a single continuous column still rather than a Charentais alembic. The appellation rules require at least 30 % pears in the fermentation; in practice, many of the good houses go well beyond it, because pear is part of what gives Domfrontais its distinguishing characteristics.

After distilling the 2014 harvest, this cask was filled in May 2015 at La Guerrelière and eleven years later the cask goes out whole and unreduced, with a purity and free-sale certificate issued alongside the analysis. It is a Calvados with the volume of a cask-strength spirit and the fruit of an orchard eau-de-vie — the two things a Domfrontais is supposed to have, and rarely gets to show at full strengt

Tasting Notes

On the nose pear leads, as a Domfrontais should: Williams pear and cooked pear, then russet apple, quince paste, hay and orchard leaf. A floral top note and a cider-cellar tang from the ethyl acetate lift the whole rather than dominating it. On the palate, full and faintly oily at cask strength: baked apple, the clean fruit purity of a pear eau-de-vie, then acacia honey, white pepper and a bitter-almond edge. Long and dry on orchard fruit and toasted oak, with a faint smoky trace.

Total Production: 107 bottles