Issue link: http://digital.copcomm.com/i/1013885
august 2018 / the tasting panel / 73 While many view our current drinking landscape as the aftermath of a bloody cocktail revolution fought in dimly lit speakeasies and pioneering restaurants, the truth contains less outright conflict and more Indiana Jones–esque excavations of long-buried trends and products. It turns out the latter is preferable, because if we'd won the war, we'd likely be plagued by the question, "What happens now?" While we've discovered the fossils of pre-Prohibition drinking in America, there's so much more drinkable history yet to be dug up and brought to light in our backyards and abroad. It's thanks to both this concept and a little archeological legwork that Pineau des Charentes, a category with a pedigree spanning more than 400 years, is just now amassing popularity in the United States. According to local vintner legend, Pineau des Charentes was born from a happy accident: When a French cellarworker needed storage for fresh-pressed grape juice, he poured his unfermented must into what he presumed was an empty barrel. However, it still contained a small amount of Cognac, and when the mishap was revealed years later, the discovery unveiled a delectable new spirit. While Pineau's origin story makes its production process seem practically effortless, Hoke Harden, a Society of Wine Educators (SWE) Certified Educator and Pineau des Charentes Brand Ambassador, directly countered this idea during a June tasting and educational luncheon at Lucques in West Hollywood, California. Thirty of Los Angeles' top bartenders and sommeliers gathered for the event at the upscale French restaurant, a neighborhood staple for the past 20 years. "Pineau des Charentes falls in the fortified wine category with the likes of vermouth or Madeira," Harden said while introducing the spirit. "It is essentially a naturally sweet wine in which the grape juice acts as a sweetener." Breaking Down Pineau In the European Union, Pineau is classified as both a vin de liqueur (fortified wine) and a vin de mistelle, a vin de liqueur subcategory and a sister classification of vin doux naturel (natural sweet wine). The latter is also made with juice that undergoes mutage, the process of adding alcohol to stop fermentation. Vins de mistelle, however, differ from vins doux naturel, as they're made with freshly harvested grape must instead of must from partially fermented grapes. "There are FRANCE'S FAVORITE VIN DE LIQUEUR IS POISED TO MAKE A SPLASH ON THE AMERICAN BEVERAGE SCENE by Mara Marski / photos by Joshua Freedman Hoke Harden, Society of Wine Educators (SWE) Certified Educator and an ambassador for the Pineau des Charentes category, welcomes guests to his June masterclass at Lucques in West Hollywood, CA. Robin Chopra, a Los Angeles–based buyer, tastes through a lineup of Pineau des Charentes during Harden's masterclass.