New Arrival - Vintage Calvados

Vintage Calvados

   I am very happy to announce the arrival of Lemorton's 1978 Vintage Domfrontais Calvados. You may recall my previous writing on Lemorton's Reserve Domfrontais Calvados (found here); wherein I believe I rhapsodized over the depth of flavor and complexity held within each bottle.

Calvados - Real Good

by Forrest Foster

Altura is an Italian restaurant. We spend much time researching and sourcing the finest Italian ingredients, wines, and spirits to present to each of our guests. We also save some of our efforts to showcase high quality products regardless of origin. This means Guy Kugel works hard to secure wines like the Signature Cuvee from Cristom, a classic Oregon winery, and it means Nathan Lockwood sampled foie gras from three different farms before settling on Rougie.

In my corner of things, I have found gems that represent some of the finest unique spirits from across the world.

Calvados

In this case, I’d like to talk a little about Calvados.

Willett - A Rye Whiskey Produced By...?

by Forrest Foster

  One of the tough decisions I’ve faced in assembling the liquors at Altura is selecting the “well” spirits we have available. Because of our limited space, I select only one spirit to represent each neccesary category. Thankfully, there was a very clear choice for one area - rye whiskey.

 I’ve loved Willett rye since I first laid eyes upon the bottle. The care that went into designing the package is clear - it’s a beautiful, noble label. The whiskey itself is an excellent expression of a high proof (110) middle aged rye - the smoky oak on the five year neatly frames earthy/herbal aromas, and gives way on the palate to spicy black pepper and menthol. The four year is more immediately mentholated and spicy, with the oak taking more of a back seat, which I consider to be a very classic rye character. 

Unfortunately, it is a highly allocated product and as such I’ve only just recently gotten my hands on a second case of their four year product. I should have it available for the foreseeable future.

A Grappa Introduction

by Forrest Foster

Within our bar there are a wide range of liquors that each have their own very special and unique characteristics.

I am personally very fond of one in particular - Grappa. Grappa is a spirit made from the distillation of vinaccia, more commonly known as pomace. These are the remnants of wine making, the shed skins, cocoons of wine. Why not pay your regards to the body of wine?

This vinaccia is distilled in a bain-marie, where the pomace, whole, is distilled. Typically this is done twice, in a standard alembic pot still, but this can be done in a continuous still as well. After the distillation, grappa can be either bottled clear, without aging in oak, or in wooden barrels. These barrels are typically oak, but there is no control or prescriptive law to make this consistent.

The difference in oak aging and not is one significant difference in the style of a grappa, also is the use of white wine grape pomace and red wine grape pomace. I will first describe the style of white wine grappas, and then red wine, ending with the wood influenced grappa.