Christian Drouin 3 years of age The Calvados Domfrontais

Volume: 0.7 litres | Alcohol content: 40% | Colouring: No

Special Features:

Le Domfrontais combines a high proportion of pears with relatively short ageing in small oak casks. Christian Drouin blends Calvados aged for three to five years from its Domfront estate. Around 60% of the fruit used consists of perry pears, alongside cider apples. The pears give the blend its fresh, light and distinctly fruity character.

The spirit is distilled once in a column still, setting this Calvados apart from the house's double-distilled Pays-d'Auge bottlings. The perry pears grow in the Domfrontais on large trees, some centuries old, which bear small, distinctly acidic fruit. Le Domfrontais is bottled at 40% alcohol in a 0.7-litre bottle and comes with gift packaging.

Alongside pear and cooked apple, the Calvados also reveals oak. Served neat in a tulip-shaped glass, it offers an opportunity to explore its combination of fruit, floral notes and spice.

Tasting Notes:

• Nose: The broad aromatic range extends from lemon and pineapple through apple and pear to roasted chestnuts and coffee. Herbs, pepper and cloves complement the fruit. Delicate notes of arnica and meadow flowers, honey and an oily walnut impression then emerge. Over time, juicy, liqueur-like apple and pear aromas become more prominent.
• Palate: The Calvados feels concentrated and pleasantly rustic on the palate. Its tannins bring together herbal, floral and fruity impressions with powdery hints of ginger and rice. Towards the mid-palate, ginger and candied lemon reinforce the grippy texture. The fruit recalls fruit preserved in sweet juice.
• Finish: The long finish opens with apple jelly, blossom honey and candied pears, followed by walnuts, dates and figs. On exhaling, green retronasal impressions of hay and pasture add a fresh, mouth-watering quality to the finish.

Distillery/Bottler:

The family firm's history began in 1960, when Christian Drouin senior acquired the Fiefs Sainte-Anne farm near Honfleur. Together with experienced distiller Pierre Pivet, he initially built up stocks of aged Calvados. His son joined the business in 1969, and sales began in 1979. Guillaume Drouin, a qualified agricultural engineer and oenologist, brought the third generation into the business in 2004.

Small casks play an important role in Christian Drouin's ageing cellars. They encourage interaction between wood, spirit and air. The house determines a separate ageing programme for each blend and vintage rather than treating every spirit alike. Christian and Guillaume Drouin taste every cask each year to decide on its future use. In addition to its Coudray-Rabut site in the Pays d'Auge, the house operates the Domfront estate where Le Domfrontais originates.

Facts: