Liqueur De Comptoir Mistelle

A mistelle from Charles Dufour's Aube domaine - the producer's off-piste bottling, sitting alongside his Blanc de Noirs Champagnes. Mistelle (also called vin de liqueur) is made by adding grape spirit to fresh, unfermented or barely-fermented grape must so that fermentation never gets going. The result keeps the must's natural sugar (which yeast hasn't had time to convert into alcohol) and picks up the warmth and aromatic lift of the marc. Champagne has its own protected mistelle category, Ratafia Champenois IGP - typically 16-22% ABV - but Dufour deliberately labels his as mistelle and bottles it as Vin de France, stepping outside the IGP spec.

This release is 50% from a perpetual mistelle solera (started 2015, mutated to about 17%) and 50% from 2020 taille (the final press fraction), blended 2:1 must-to-marc and rested outdoors for a year. The eau-de-vie itself is distilled from Dufour's own 2010 grapes and barrel-aged ever since. No added sulphur, unfined, unfiltered, around 1,000 bottles, 100% Pinot Noir from Landreville. Lighter, drier, and lower in alcohol than the regional standard - savoury and gently sweet, with the structure and acidity of Pinot Noir behind it, not the ripe-fruit sugar bomb the category sometimes becomes.