Let's get fruity episode 5 - Other Berries
Updated: Jul 15
Welcome back ... another week, another fruity lineup. Following last week's raspberry-fest, today we wrap up the remaining berry samples & bottles that I have in this epic tasting series.
We've got two blackcurrant Eau de Vie and single examples of strawberry, blueberry, gooseberry & elderberry.
A brief look at the names on test and we are clearly in for something special - Capovilla, Capreolus, Kolonko and Strawbar ... a punchy lineup.
Berries are generally expensive fruit, and distillates take huge volumes of fruit to produce tiny quantities of juice. At up to 45kg of fruit to produce a single litre of Eau de Vie, these are predictably rare and expensive spirits. They're also hard work & time-consuming to make ... and all for a tiny audience of enthusiasts. We have to thank our lucky stars that a few distillers persevere with these fruity endeavours.
If you'd like a little background on this brief excursion away from rum reviewing .. Here's my introduction to this crazy summer series.
This week I am profiling a young distillery close to my heart. Vinha Alta is based in Madeira - did I mention we're opening our new hostel & guesthouse there next year?? :-)
Established in 2019 by Paulo & Maria, VA spirits distils a range of spirits from sugarcane rum and gin to (surprise, surprise) fruit distillates.
An experimental artisan distiller, with a previous successful career in winemaking, Paulo uses his beautiful small copper hybrid still to produce the island's only double-distilled cane juice rum, excellent tangerine and fennel gins, and a wide variety of Eau-de-Vie produced predominantly from the island's excess or unwanted fruit.
Vinha Alta have two different brands of Rum.
Balancal -– their signature brand which compromises a selection of rums, including the inaugural release, the Single cask Edition, Distillers Selection and the Portraits of Rum. (I reviewed their first release here)
Shortridge Lawton – which pays honour to the last Madeira Wine company to send their wines to age in the holds of ships crossing the Equator.
Last year I had the pleasure of trying a lot of Paulo's experimental fruit distillates, he has produced Eau de Vie from bananas, custard apples, starfruit, apples, ginger, tangerine and several others. Often these remain experimental but a couple have (happily for us) moved to commercial production and bottling. Going a step further, one or two are now spending time in cask!
Over the last couple of years VA received awards for the some of their spirits, including a huge 'Gold - 98' points from IWSC for their outstanding Banana (2023) and Aged Banana (2024). The unaged banana will be included in my final 'Other Fruit' round of the series.
And without further ado.... 'other berries' - let's go
Six fruit distillates, reviewed in the same random order as the lead photo. 15ml of each, left to open up in the glass for 30 mins. All nosed first, then tasted. Assisted today by the Rodriguez - as MrsSecretRunBar had the film 'Searching for Sugarman' on last night - if you haven't seen this, you're in for a treat!
The premium version of Strawbar's unique Eau de Vie, made in northern Greece from wild strawberries. I covered Strawbar spirits and distillery in detail here (Round 4's profiled distiller)
Nose: This needed the full 30 mins for a paraffin edge to lift. Worth the wait as you're left with an intense, heady nose of fresh strawberries, rotten strawberries, black pepper and strawberry foam sweets. Tangy and inviting. Impressive depth and concentration. Really captures the essence of strawberry.
Mouth: Liquid strawberry concentrate. Mid palate brings sherbet, and a sharp acidic slap keeping everything tight. The finish is a real winner. Layers of clean, intense strawberry go on and on and on. I'm looking forward to messing around with this in some cocktails. Unique, and outstanding quality for the price [88pts]
No, this is not Sambuca :-) An unusual elderberry Eau de Vie from the main man. A single vintage limited release of just 203 bottles. The first of two spirits in this round from Round 3's profiled distiller. Tasted today from a beautiful 200ml miniature version in Capo's standard elegant bottle style.
Oddly an off white colour - can anyone shed any light of this?
Nose: Happily this is also doing what it says on the tin. I could be smelling a very good quality elderflower cordial. Heavily perfumed. Outstanding alcohol integration. A touch of medicinal peppermint. Quality stuff.
Mouth: Lovely, intense elderberry & elderflower. Decent texture and mouthfeel. Amazing alcohol integration. Heavily perfumed. A bit on the sharp side for the finish. Raw. I like it, and if you're an elderflower fan then I suspect you'll love it. The quality is undeniable. Not as exciting as some others in the lineup, and a touch short on the finish, but a big fresh Eau de Vie that honours its single ingredient perfectly. [87pts]
Yes, £135 for a half bottle. Capreolus distillates are a search for perfection. Produced from the finest ingredients, No corners are cut in the journey from field to glass.
4,200 kg of blackcurrants, hand-graded & cleaned, were gently crushed and slowly fermented to preserve the maximum aroma. This essence was then triple-distilled resulting in just 510 bottles for this release of 2022 blackcurrant Eau de Vie. Rare stuff.
I covered the outstanding Capreolus in detail here (Round 1's profiled distiller)
Nose: Spicy stuff. Dry and slightly bitter. Complex and very earthy, I'm transported to the canes and the garden. Enjoyable drying wood and a little menthol. An amazing nose although a little lacking blackcurrant fruit, fingers crossed for the palate.
Mouth: And there's the fruit. Globs of dark berry fruit, and a lot of zip balancing things perfectly. A complex dram that I could spend hours musing over. A long, intense, faultless finish that perfectly captures both the fruitiness and the sharpness of blackcurrants. [90-pts]
If you thought the Capreolus was rare; uber micro artisan distiller Johannes Kolonko used wild foraged blackcurrants to make just 14 litres of this precious 2018 batch of blackcurrant Eau de Vie. Hand sorted and cleaned before macerating and distilling - the result was 69 of his stunningly presented (and eye-wateringly expensive) little 200ml bottles.
I will be profiling the fascinating Kolonko distillery in a future article of this fruity series.
Nose: Fresher and fruitier than the Capreolus. Quite mesmeric. A really intense spirit with scents of fresh berries, mint, almond, blackcurrant and cane. Complex, super clean and very inviting.
Mouth: A smidge less complex when compared to the Capreolus. Berries and berry leaves. Lots of spearmint through the long incredible finish. An incredibly clean well made distillate. A pinch too much focus on the spearmint through the finish for me [87-pts]
The rare treats continue with our sole gooseberry entrant. A global release of just 184 of Capreolus's distinctive tall black 375ml bottles.
Around 1,500kg of Invicta Gooseberries, sourced from a single family farm just 30 miles from the distillery, produced these 184 bottles - that's around 22kg of fruit per litre!
As I mentioned above, I covered the outstanding Capreolus in detail here (Round 1's profiled distiller)
Nose: Wow. Special stuff. If you're looking for a gooseberry spirit, for the quintessence of gooseberry, then I can't imagine anything better. Sweet & sour, herbal, super concentrated. A slight nuttiness and some spearmint. This really showcases the sweet yet dry flavours of perfectly ripe gooseberries.
Mouth: Absolutely banging concentration and balance. Thick gloupy texture. The flavours come in waves - spearmint, dark berry fruit, spice, and always returning to gooseberry. Lovely balance of fruit acid and moreish sweet & sour gooseberry control a perfect 1 min+ finish [90+pts]
Our final 'other berries' Eau de Vie is a limited 'single vintage' release of 233 bottles made from wild blueberries in northern Italy by the maestro - Gianni Capovilla - round 3's profiled distiller
Nose: The first one to really make me salivate. Beautiful stuff. Summer breeze in a fruit garden. An incredibly powerful, intense nose for 41%. Juicy fruit - stunningly fresh and concentrated, with a lovely balancing acid and dry vegetal notes. The clean fruit perfume is outstanding.
Mouth: Bright, powerful and delicious. The wild blueberry essence is well represented here. Fresh fruit, blueberries and blueberry flowers. The finish is too heavily perfumed for me. It's incredibly intense. Hat's off to Capo for producing something this big and clean. The best nose of the group but unfortunately the perfumed taste on the finish is a little too much for me. [86pts]
Conclusion - two visits to Capo, two to Capreolus and special treats from Kolonko and Strawbar. This was always going to be an amazing round. Strawbar is delicous and outstanding value. A well deserved bronze medal. I'm amazed we don't see more cocktails using this awesome distillate.
Gold and silver was a one horse race and I enjoyed spending an hour toying with which of these outstanding Eau de Vie would make it through to the final. In the end it's gooseberry for gold! Cracking stuff
Next week it's time to wrap up our last pomme fruit. Apple Eau de Vie! And a distiller profile of Cornwall's Fowey Valley...
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