Drink of the Week: Lemorton Reserve

In a season of hours-long feasts, Calvados is one of my favorite ways to end a meal. (Others include amaro and staying at the table so long that you start to feel hungry again.) 

Lemorton Reserve, an aged Calvados from the Mantilly region of Normandy, France, is an especially crowd-pleasing option. Distilled from apples and pears, it bridges autumnal and wintry flavors, and makes an excellent dessert pairing or substitute. Normandy fruit is rightly celebrated, but this particular Calvados gets a lot of complexity from how it’s made and aged. The brandy sits on its lees in large wooden casks for up to ten months, and then ages in used French oak barrels for 4 to 6 years before bottling. 

In addition to toasty, tarte tatin flavors, it has an elegantly round texture with vanilla, herbal, and gently oxidative notes. It’s just the thing to pour when you’re eager to sustain a conversation at the table but can’t fathom eating another bite. 

While young Calvados are delicious in cocktails, I like to serve aged expressions like Lemorton Reserve neat. If the night is young and I’m in it for the long haul, I might also splash it into an after-dinner cup of coffee, à la the drink that Normans call un café calva. It’s the festive season, after all—those halls aren’t going to deck themselves. astorwines.com, $59.96