calvados is a cider-based brandy that comes from Normandy in northern France. The region is largely surrounded by the English Channel, which creates a cool and humid environment that is not hospitable for grape growing. Such a climate, however, along with soils that contain silt, clay, granite, flint, and limestone, provides an ideal atmosphere for the cultivation of both apple and pear trees.
Although distilled cider (or eau de vie de bouche) was made in Normandy as early as 1553, the word calvados first appeared in early 1800s. Although it was once overflowing with calvados distillers, migration to urban areas, temperance laws, and increasing grain and beet cultivation led to a decline in apple orchards and other fruit trees in Normandy.
Increasing interest in calvados led to greater regulation in the nineteenth century. A number of specific regions were identified around Normandy, and most distilled calvados once in column stills. Differences in apple varieties and soil types created different regional characteristics in calvados that were formally recognized by the French government as regulated regions. The first official appellation was established in 1942 and called Calvados Pays d’Auge. To bear its name, the fruit must have been grown in a circumscribed area and the cider must have been double distilled. In 1984, the regulated regions were combined into a second appellation simply known as AOC Calvados that generally required that calvados go through a single distillation. A southern region known for its unusually high plantings of pear trees was granted the appellation Calvados Domfrontais in 1998. Regulations required that its cider contain at least 30 percent pears and be distilled once in a column still.
Traditional apple trees have tall trunks (hautes-tiges) and long branches under which cows can graze. The milk from these cows is used not only for cream and butter but also for the region’s well-known cheeses Camembert, Pont l’Eveque, Livarot, and Neufchâtel. Since the 1980s, farmers have increasingly planted their orchards with dwarf trees (basses-tiges) that produce fruit at a more rapid rate and take up less space.
About thirty varieties of apples and ten varieties of pears are commonly grown in the Calvados region. The apples and/or pears are harvested and crushed, and their juice is extracted from the pulp. Fermentation takes place in stainless-steel tanks or neutral oak barrels. When the cider is completely dry, it is distilled in either pot stills or column stills, depending upon the region. The clear exiting spirit is placed into oak barrels where, over time, it begins to pick up its darker color. After two years in barrel, the spirit can be released as calvados (marked as three stars, “Trois pommes,” or “Fine”), although the majority is aged in these oak barrels for much longer periods of time; after four years, it may be labeled as “VO,” “Vieille reserve,” or VSOP; after six, as “XO,” “Napoléon,” “Hors d’age,” or “Age inconnu.”
Until the mid-twentieth century, calvados had a poor reputation in France: it was often distilled clandestinely and drunk without any aging at all. Referred to as calva, it was akin to American moonshine and often served alongside, or often in, coffee (in Normandy, there was even a “Café de la Mort,” where calvados replaced the water used to make the coffee). See moonshine. Stricter appellation laws, tighter controls, and diminished orchard acreage have largely reduced the amount of mediocre calvados on the market.
While calvados is often used in cooking and is found in several classic cocktails, it is typically consumed on its own at the end of a meal similar to fine brandies. The balloon snifter is widely used for consuming calvados, but a sherry copita also works well. As with other fine brandies, aromas and flavors develop as the spirit ages: green apple and fresh pear are often coupled with vanilla and honey blossom in calvados up to ten years old. Adolescence sees emerging aromas of baked orchard fruit, often paired with some nuttiness, a whiff of smoke, and spice. Calvados more than twenty years old is rare and quite difficult to find. Examples of well-aged calvados tend to have deep aromas of red apple, concentrated pear, mirabelle plum, licorice, vanilla, walnuts, and well-integrated touches of smoke.
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By: Charles Neal