Rode Druif

New Kestemont fruit lambic, a grape lambic made with Montepulciano grapes; 37,5 cl corked bottle from Huis van de Geuze shared with tderoeck and Meeki. Pale pinkish-white, moussey, opening and eventually dissolving head on a misty burgundy red robe with deep purple tinge. Aroma of indeed Montepulciano but more in the form of grape juice than wine (though a wine-like impression is certainly there), grape leaves, lingonberries, lemon pith, old dry wood, grape skin, dust, red apple (quite strong), oxidized old rosé wine. Tart, juicy onset, very grape-juicy again but in a tart way, lots of red apple, red plum and redcurrant impressions, blending in with a sour-fruit-yoghurty effect running through a moderately carbonated (at least for a bottled lambic), supple and eventually vinous body; layers of tart, drying red fruit continue, over a bready backbone and dried by woody tannins, but also by grape skin and grape seed tannins. Long vinous finish though, not overly dry and maintaining juiciness - but also becoming more and more vinous and connecting all the flavours well. Kestemont is still learning the trade and some of their earlier fruit lambics failed to impress me, but this is one fine grape lambic indeed - in fact it is probably the finest fruit lambic in general that has come out of Kestemont's operations so far, at least for me. Very accomplished, better than expected even (not that my expectations were necessarily low in this case) - too bad that there have been so disproportionally many overwhelming grape lambics around in recent years by the likes of Cantillon and 3 Fonteinen, so to say that competition is stiff in this field, is definitely an understatement...