Roger Groult 25 Yr. Pays D'Auge Calvados

In the glass this has a deep caramel brown hue. Turning to the nose there are aromas of just cut apples, vanilla, oak, licorice, wood spice, apple blossoms, toffee, and gingerbread. The palate continues the integration of the nose with baked apples, nutmeg, forest floor, and ample wood spice. The lower proof ensures this goes down quite smoothly. D&M Tasting Notes

When doing these introductions to producers both established and obscure, it seems to your dear writer that we must first open with a recitation of x generations of family history tied, in the great French tradition, to the land. So it is with the Groult family. In 1860, while we here in America were on the eve of the Civil War, in a sleepy part of Normandy, Pierre Groult began to distill the cider from his apple trees. He built his stock and reputation over time and was rewarded thirty three years later with a gold medal for, as it was known at the time, eau-de-vie de cidre. His son Leon continued to grow the aging stocks and vineyards before he was brought to a premature end by WWI. His son Roger was thrust into a position of great familial responsibility at an early age and used the fullness of his working years expanding the cellar and the reach of his Calvados, first in France and later on internationally. Today Jean Roger Groult (seen above), along with his siblings together make their mark on the family’s 160 year old business. As Jean Roger remarked “We are a young generation making a product that’s old-fashioned, we’re dusting off the image of Calvados.”

Generation after generation has worked to build the estate of Roger Groult into the position that it enjoys today. They own just shy of 67 acres of apple orchards planted with around 6000 trees. These orchards sit atop the unique soils of the Pays D’Auge which have a mix of clay, silt and flint. There are some 30 different apple varieties that the family has to use, and around seventy percent are bitter to bittersweet varieties, 20% are varieties that are sweet, and finally 10% are what the family calls acid apples. The harvest takes place in the fall and will yield between 400 to 600 tons of apples. (Take a look at the right to see what that looks like in the family courtyard.) After hand sorting and washing the apples are brewed and made into cider that ages on its fine lees for several months, with each ton of apples making cider that clocks in at 5-7% ABV. From there is distilling time! The family’s stills are on the small side and unique in that they remain wood fired. After being distilled twice the resulting spirit goes into the family’s stock of barrels which range in size between 100 and 13000 liters, and some of them are approaching a century of time in the cellar. The family has historically used a perpetual or solera system of barrels for their age designated bottlings where newer spirit is added to barrels that contain older spirits. As such the youngest spirit in the bottle we have for you is a quarter century and a very small proportion is multiple decades older. Michael Kennel, D&M