6.4

Appearance - 6 | Aroma - 7 | Flavor - 6 | Texture - 6 | Overall - 6.5

Dunkel beeriger, sehr trockener Beginn. Moderate Würzigkeit, wenig sauer, dunkel nach Beeren. Mittellanger Nachhall. 10/11/10/10//10

8.8

Appearance - 8 | Aroma - 9 | Flavor - 9 | Texture - 8 | Overall - 9

Sample from bottle at Quintessence. Deep purple with brief pinkish head. Red grapes, earthy oak, light funk. Total flavour bomb with LOADS of grape and red berries. Excellent!

8.5

Appearance - 10 | Aroma - 8 | Flavor - 8 | Texture - 8 | Overall - 9

(Bottle sample @ Quintessence 2018, Cantillon, May 1/18) Pours deep inky purple with a dark pink head. Notes of rich peppery red wine grapes, earth, fruit skins, dark cherries, light lactic tartness, overt wine, a little fruit pit, leaves, ample wood, fairly heavy tannins, light barnyard, spicebox hints. Soft grapey sweetness meets light sourness and rather high bitterness. Medium bodied, low carbonation. Hefty, wine-dominated, spicy and overt grape character, a million miles removed from the Lambic d'Aunis served alongside it. Great pairing with the cottage cheese/Tasmanian pepper and the most interesting wine grape lambic I've tried from Cantillon so far.

8.3

Appearance - 8 | Aroma - 8 | Flavor - 8 | Texture - 8 | Overall - 9

Bouteille @ Quintessence 2018. Sur présentation très précise de Christophe Gillard, on en apprend un peu plus sur ce raisin très spécial - forte concentration de l'alicante Bouschet - un cépage teinturier fort intéressant au palais. Le tout verse sur une couleur pourpre et un col légèrement rosé. Un bouquet prononcé de baies et de fines effluves presque maritimes se dégagent. Retrouve un rétro-nasal qui met à l'honneur le funk Cantillon, se dernier se retrouvant diminué par la forte note de raisin. Palais offre un palais épais chargé en notes de raisins et de baies, le tout rendant un léger caractère épicé se rapprochant un peu de la myrtille au niveau fruité. Petit côté poivré sur la fin, et un effet baie de goji, le tout est âcre prononcé et une dominance de fruité de raisin qui enlève un peu l'effet funk de lambic. Le boisé de ce dernier reste discret. Ici la base de Cantillons est de départ pour mettre en avant ce cépage au même titre que cela est fait pour la Lamvinus.

8.4

Appearance - 10 | Aroma - 8 | Flavor - 8 | Texture - 8 | Overall - 8.5

Wonderful dark purple colour, red hue, light violet head. Fruity aroma, grape juice and must, blackcurrant, wood, yoghurt and vinegar, some cheese notes. Quite sour flavour, very fruity, lemon, blackcurrant, sour blackberries, grapes. Quite dry. Finish wood, grapes, berries. Great flavour bomb, and worked wonderful with the wine - cottage cheese - Tasmanian pepperberry combination. Great stuff.
(from 75cL bottle @ Quintessence '18)

8.2

Appearance - 8 | Aroma - 9 | Flavor - 8 | Texture - 6 | Overall - 9

Two year old Cantillon lambic with Alicante Bouchet grapes, an old and relatively uncommon red wine grape variety from France, also known as ‘teinturier’ apparently. Sampled during Quintessence, where it was paired with cottage cheese flavoured with a Tasmanian pepper variety – a combination that worked wonderfully well, I must say. This beer showed a beautifully pure lilac coloured, moussy, lacing head and a hazy, very deep ruby-hued violet colour. Aroma of sour grape juice and grape seeds, dusty attic, old cheese rind, dried blackberries, old tawny port, red wine vinegar, moist wood, green tree leaves, old books, tomato peel. Crisp sour onset with sharp lemony acidic edges, otherwise bursting with tart dark fruit juice, blue grapes in concentrated form but blackcurrant- and brambleberry-like impressions as well, with very little sweetness to it even if the grapes have retained a slight fructose accent amidst all this tartness; bone dry middle further dried by tannins from the grape seeds and skins, with a notably woody factor in the finish, dusty, accentuating the tannic character with an earthy note. Complex, bone dry, very tart and tannic, this is not the most accessible Cantillon fruit lambic, not even in comparison with e.g. Saint Lamvinus, but it sure boasts a lot of personality, with a kind of ‘foresty’ character to it due to the tree leaf, dry and dusty dead wood and forest fruit associations. Curious to find out if this variation on the old grape lambic theme, as revived by Cantillon already in the seventies, will be continued in some or other form.

7.3

Appearance - 8 | Aroma - 6 | Flavor - 7 | Texture - 8 | Overall - 8

Sampled at Quintessence 2018. Dark ruby pour with a light ruby head. Stinky, slightly poopy, funky, with additional notes of yogurt and grapes. Not one of my favourites.

8

Fajnie owocowe, cierpkie, przyprawowe, pijalne, mila dzikisc, dosc grzeczna 4.2