Keg at ushers. Pours deep reddish amber, nose is funky, oak, cherry, taste is similar, chewy toffee, vanilla.

Draught @ Chmielarnia Marszalkowska, ul. Marszalkowska 10/16, Warszawa, Poland 00-590. [ As Alvinne Pur Sang Oak Aged Mortagne ].Unclear - hazy matt medium red color with a average, frothy, good lacing, mostly lasting, off-white head. Aroma is moderate malty, pale malt, caramel, moderate to light heavy cherry, tart cherries, sweet cherries, light wood, vinegar - wine notes. Flavor is moderate sweet and light acidic with a long duration, tart cherry - wine, fruity - berry, alcohol, sweet malt. Body is medium, texture is oily, carbonation is soft, finish feel is light alcoholic. [20160206]

Bottle shared by Marcus. Pours a slight ruddy copper with no head. Aroma is cherry and wood with a strange light hint of chocolate. Med body or so. Flavor is very cherry, and I opine the wood contains a suggestion that sour might not be far away. It’s delicious, but so un-Alvinne. :)

50 cl bottle. Pours clear and golden red with a small white head. Aroma is cherry fruity and medium dry. Cherry fruity, light citric, earthy and wooden. Lingering crisp cherry fruity, dry and yet crisp. Smooth and crisp finish.

Dark almost blood red pour, semi-translucent from a bottle little head. aroma of watermelon, raspberry and cherry with wheat. taste reminds me of sour granny smith apple. some sourdough yeast, candies. a little bit of cough syrup but overall, a nice beer.

Bottle from Dranken Geers, Ostakker, nr Gent, Belgium, consumed and shared with dad at his place, Kilburn, Derbyshire, Saturday 17th January 2015 Hope I have put this in right place it was definately 11%. Pours red with a white head. Fruity with some tart cherriness going on also a little woodiness at edge, I cannot believe it is as strong as stated. Looks pretty, taste is somewhat so-so. Its good but it ain’t great. Fruity, tangy but not so sour (dad drank it and ge hates sours) A6 A4 T7 P3 Ov13 3.3

Alvinne’s Melchior aged on Bordeaux wine barrels for 9 months, after which 25 kgs of sour cherries per 200 litres are added; had this at a beer festival years ago, but apparently then it was aged on barrels of Monbazillac wine, which does not fall under the Bordeaux wine region (though adjacent to it) so not entirely the same thing, but I suppose a minor change in the barrel does not really justify a separate entry. Rerating now in the current Bordeaux version, from a bottle with red label that reads "Pur Sang Alvinne Oak Collection" (batch 716, unfortunately I never wrote down the batch number of the original Monbazillac version I tasted years ago). Pale greyish white head with an off-pinkish hue to it, leaving ’papery’ patches of lacing and regular in shape, though it did take a bit of forcing to develop; beautiful deep vermillion red colour with deeper ruby red glow, lightly hazy but turning deeper brownish red and cloudy as the bottle is gradually emptied in the glass. Aroma of fresh sour cherries and cherry pits, ripe red raspberry, soap, caramel, raw red cabbage or even bitterish Kohlrabi, sweetish grapes or indeed Sauternes but eventually actual dry red wine as well and quite a lot of it, camomile, unmistakable glue-like solvents, Kirsch, cashew nuts, ripe blue plum, wax, soggy bread. Fruity onset teeming with sour cherries, tart but in a gentle way, accompanied by accents of sour redcurrant as well as sweet peach, softish carbonation (undercarbonated, in fact) but still quite ’full’ body due to the alcohol; smooth caramelly malt sweet core in the middle, a tad bready too, but its (relative) sweetness is balanced by the cherry tartness. Slight spicy phenols pop up here and there too but the finish is mostly dominated by a drying wood tannin effect which is enhanced by the astringency of the cherry pits. Solvent-like accent retronasally does not really disturb. In the tail, I get a warming, white port-like alcohol glow yet no true astringency from it, as well as an unmistakable red wine flavor going down the throat - its seems to be quite typical for a wine barrel aged beer to release this brief and light, but pure wine flavor only after everything else has passed the palate. This dry red wine factor matches well with the tartness of the cherries and adds further fruitiness. A vague but notable, earthy hop bitterness is present at the back as well. ’Fruity’ is the least one can say about this beer: the red wine barrel factor is cleverly matched with sour cherries and both seems to reinforce one another. The characteristics of the - lovely - basic beer are a bit obscured by these two elements but that is probably the intention, and something new and pretty has come out of this treatment. Soft, rounded, thoroughly fruity with pure cherry tartness without being an actual sour: this is a ’kriekenbier deluxe’, I would say... Looking back at the old notes I took from the original Monbazillac version, this current version seems to have toned down the cherry sourness a bit, having become less astringent and more soft, with more of a true wine character to it and less of the red wine vinegar-like notes I took back then. Interesting to revisit and note these differences with the original and my rating here is an average of both, but regardless, this remains a recommendable, rich fruit beer.