Serious Juice

Domaine des Grottes l'Antidote

Beaujolais Nouveau? Dit is de next best thing.

Druivensap

Domaine des Grottes

l'Antidote

kruidig

fruitig

Biologisch

Sparkling

'You might drink it with your Children, AA friends and pregnant womens' staat op de website van de producent zelf, een natuurwijnmaker uit Beaujolais. Fransen, hoe kan je niet van ze houden?

De Nederlandse importeur geeft er een iets andere draai aan:

'Doet denken aan pétillant naturel. Zo lekker dat je de alcohol niet mist! De perfecte gamay bij het ontbijt (en/of als "tegengif" bij een kater).'

Dan snappen we wel meteen de naam van de deze speciale drank. Het is sap van gamay, dé druif van Bojo, geblend met appel, citroen, gember en wilde planten en kruiden. Gepasteuriseerd en tenslotte koolzuur toegevoegd.

Zoals Domaine des Grottes het zelf verwoordt:

'We Produice the Juice and most of the herbs (except ginger, that doesn't grow here). There are 15 herbs together and we extract aromas carrefully, with diferents methods adapted for each flower (for example Thym is distilled to get the more sutils aromas). We blend the juice and the tea and send it to our partner, who add a few appel juice, then carbonated the juice and pasterized it for conservation. There are no Additive. We are really happy to ofer you this not boring - soft drink option since 2016.'

Over de producent

Domaine des Grottes is van de bio-dynamische wijnboer Romain uit Beaujolais, die wijn maakt van enkel druiven, zonder enige toevoeging (ook geen sulfiet). Naast wijnstokken heeft hij op zijn domein granen en kruiden groeien.
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Ik las op zijn website een mooi verhaal over zijn keuze om no & low alternatieven te maken. Het leest als een soort verdediging, en illustreert hoe alcoholvrij langzaam uit de taboesfeer raakt, ook bij wijnmakers. En dat het in het Engels is geschreven, maakt het extra sympathiek. Lees mee:

"The Philosophy

I am really proud to offer people the oportunity to drink a not boring soft drink...

It's a drink we can share with our children (educating them to aromatic complexity)

Pregnant womens don't feel punished anymore when not sharing a glass of wine.

and moreover the Antidote has different meaning for me.

Even as a winemaker (since 20 years now) I experimented several time deception when I wanted to share a good moment with friends and when it was not proper time for me to drink alcool.

For example it is too early in the morning / not compatible with responsabilities like driving, worrying about kids.... or even just because I wanted to enjoy my full capabilities for a rendez-vous;-))

I discover 15 years ago with the creation of a Petillant (Petit coin de Paradis - 6% of Alcool) that there were a lot of different (balanced points) that might be seen as a target in my work.

And I started to think about how to have a less sweet Juice with no alcool that I might share even with my own kids.

As I was really interessted in Biodiversity, and used to collect wild flowers and herbs, I imagined blending juice with herbal tea.

Somehow, i found the idea really funny to have in the juice the same herbs that grown naturally inbeetween the vines, and normally are seen as a problem.

What a nice re-frame.

Those herbs, traditionnaly recognized as competitors in the field became thrue allies in the production process.

I started blending juice and tea in 2010. But bubbles were missing. It's the funny part of the Balance

I looked then for a partner (and found Philippe who is apple producer).

Then, from year to year I approach and evaluate the Antidote like a wine in term of balance (acidity/sugar/bubbles/bitterness),

and try to follow the guidance of intuition.

This year was a big challenge with less acidity in the grappes..."