A dry vermouth which is made with a base of Pineau des Charentes.

Pineau is a regional speciality of the Charente department, which includes the Cognac region. Pineau is made by combining either lightly fermented or unfermented grape juice and Cognac eau-de-vie, and aging it in oak casks.

La Quintinye Vermouth Royal Extra Dry is thought to be the first ever Vermouth to use Pineau des Charentes as its base, along with a small amount of white wine from South West France.

For this vermouth, Quintinye (pronounced Quin-Tee-Knee) start with white Pineau, to which they artemisia (better known as wormwood), cinnamon, iris root, angelica, cardamom, grape flowers, bitter orange, ginger, nutmeg, quinine, quassia amara and liquorice. Some mysterious additional botanicals are also present, bringing the total number up to 27.

The result is a deeply herbaceous vermouth with notes of dry white wine, lavender, green chopped herbs, grapes, violet, peppery spice, bitter wormwood, nutmeg, intense quinine, mint and star anise.

Extremely dry this is best used for mixing, perhaps into a Quintinye Martini!

Incidentally, the company takes its name from Jean-Baptisste de la Quintinye, the botanists of King Louis XIV, who designed the kitchen gardens at Versailles. Another Jean, Jean-Sébastien Robicquet (the man behind Ciroc vodka) helped to create this range of vermouth alongside EWG Spirits.

• Distillery / brand
  La Quintinye Vermouth Royal
• Country
  France
• Bottler
  Distillery Bottling
• SKU
  041821