Gin O’Clock – Part Forty Eight
One of the benefits of the ginaissance is that many outlets are getting in on the act of selling an increasingly widening range of my favourite spirit. Take the duty-free shop in Alicante airport. Eschewing a pair of castanets and a stuffed donkey that were the purchases of choice of British holidaymakers in days of yore, I headed to the spirits section and spent the last of my Euros on three gins that I had not tried before.
The first of these purchases was the intriguing G’Vine Floraisson – a bit of a mouthful in anybody’s language and probably the bastard offspring of some creative type in a marketing agency who thought the name perfectly blended the concept of gin and the vine. I’ll get back to you on that one.
The name aside, G’vine is from France, distilled in the Cognac region, and uses as its base a neutral grape spirit, made from Ugni Blanc grapes. In doing so the distillers tap into a tradition dating back to the 13th century when grapes were used in France and the Low Countries as the base for juniper spirits. It makes for a smoother base than the usual wheat based spirits.
The second differentiator in the drink is the use of the flowers from the vine as a botanical. The vine flowers for a few days in June before the grape berry forms and floraisson is the French word used to describe the flowering. The Floraisson gin uses flowers which have just formed whereas the other gin from the G’Vine stable, the Nouaison, uses more maturer blossoms. The flowers are hand-picked and macerated in the neutral grape spirit for a few days.
There are nine other botanicals used to create the gin – juniper, ginger root, liquorice, cassia bark, green cardamom, coriander, cubeb berries, nutmeg, and lime. Each botanical is macerated individually in separate liquor stills and then the floraisson infusion, the separate botanical mixes and the grape spirit are all blended together in a copper pot. Naturally, it has a name – Lily Fleur. The result is a clear spirit which weighs in at 40% ABV.
It seems a lot of trouble to go to and is a radical departure from the usual method of macerating all the botanicals in one mix. And, of course, the question is: is it all worth the effort?
While the spirit is crystal clear and smooth to the taste, the wine base gives it a sharpness that is not present with the more usual grain bases. It is certainly different but the astringent qualities of the base are not to my taste. To the nose it has a very floral aroma and the initial impression when one rolls the spirit in the mouth is of a very flowery concoction. I assume that this is the vine flower, which assumes a dominant position in the mix. It is only in the aftertaste that the, to me, more interesting flavours, principally juniper and ginger, come to the fore.
I didn’t find it unpalatable but I wouldn’t place it among my favourites, not least because it seems to have strayed some way from the tastes and sensations that one would associate with a gin. But there is clearly a place for a summery, floral-heavy gin and if that is your bag, it is worth a try.
The bottle is a dumpy with a light green coating towards the shoulder, a nod to the colouring of vineyards in the spring, apparently. The top is a hideously large, green screw cap. The lettering, on the other hand, is in a modern style and gives a rather stylish flourish to what otherwise would have been an unremarkable bottle.
