Lise Baccara La Troussépinète Aperitif Wine 750ml
type: Product
description: Troussépinète has a genuinely unusual origin story — it emerged in the Vendée, a coastal region just north of Cognac, and is believed to have first been made clandestinely, by unofficial distillers who had never been granted legal distilling rights by French authorities. In earlier centuries, wealthier drinkers flavored their mediocre local wines with expensive imported spices — cinnamon, ginger, cloves, rose petals. Farmers with smaller means had no such luxury, so they turned to what grew abundantly around them instead: blackthorn bushes, whose French name, "épinète," gives the wine its own name. Troussépinète became the working farmer's answer to spiced wine, made entirely from what the local hedgerows already offered. Lise Baccara's version was created by Gérard Pagnon, a small wine grower and liquoriste working in the Cognac region, using what the importer describes as the genuine, ancient original recipe — one of several methods that exist for making troussépinète, but the one Pagnon has chosen to preserve. Young blackthorn shoots are harvested each spring, sliced, and left to macerate in low-alcohol cognac for one to two months, slowly releasing their sap. Wine — red, in this case — is then blended in, along with a measure of sugar, with the final blend adjusted to exactly 17% ABV before filtering and bottling. Worth knowing: the blackthorn bush's botanical name is Prunus spinosa, the same shrub responsible for sloe berries — but the berries themselves are never used here. It's only the spring shoots, carrying their own distinctive sap and almond-like flavor, that go into the bottle. The results have earned genuine, serious recognition. At the 2012 Ultimate Spirits Challenge, La Troussépinète took home the Chairman's Trophy with a score of 96 points, rated "Extraordinary" and given the competition's "Ultimate Recommendation" — the top prize awarded to any aperitif that year. Wine Enthusiast followed in 2018 with 92 Points, describing "this 'red dessert wine' …
brand: Southern
additional property: Title
  type: PropertyValue
  value: Default Title
offers: AggregateOffer
  low price: 22.00
  high price: 22.00
  price currency: USD
  offer count: 1
  offers: Offer
    price: 22.00
    price currency: USD
    availability: https://schema.org/OutOfStock
    item condition: https://schema.org/NewCondition
    shipping details: OfferShippingDetails

BreadcrumbList
item list element: Home
  type: ListItem
  position: 1
  item: /
item list element: www.blackwellswines.com
  type: ListItem
  position: 2
  item: https://productregistry.org/merchant/www.blackwellswines.com
item list element: Lise Baccara La Troussépinète Aperitif Wine 750ml
  type: ListItem
  position: 3
  item: https://productregistry.org/product/yx0gMnoy