Cantillon Vigneronne

Brewed by Cantillon
Style: Lambic - Fruit
Brussels, Belgium

Dull yellow going on gold body. Big fat bubbles for a head that did not hang around. White wine on the nose as well as sweat. Sweet grapefruit in the taste folllowed by the familiar sourness of the cantlllons.

On first uncorking, a citric, sour, mustiness pervades the air from out of the bottle. Bright golden color, slight haze, with a solid white head that wittles down to nothingness in seconds flat. Aroma: a subdued sour, a mellow lemon/orange, and a certain je’ne sais whosits, a dank must, but with a trace of sweetness and honey. Taste: bracingly sour, instant grimace graces the countenance, but once you get over it, it’s pretty easy to take. A light, rounded fruitiness lays underneath, a pleasant flavor, vibrant, tangy, tasty. Medium body, extraordinary, tart texture, with a long, comfortable finish, giving a little spark with every encounter with the tongue. Good stuff ! Muscat grapes mixed with unblended lambic...I like it!

2004 bottling. I’ve had a bottle of this sitting around the house for a while, but when it became available at Capital Ale House, I felt it was a moral imperative to order it with lunch. Hazy medium gold and orange, slight, soft carbonation, but no head. Big horseblanket aroma, yet somehow refined versus brash. Flavor was horseblanket, barnyard, a touch of goat cheese, and something ethereal and lightly fruity floating sweetly in the background. Cantillon acidity is present, but a touch of sweet from the grapes remains in this relatively young beer. A wonderfully sophisticated beverage.

07.29.05 750ml bottle. I don’t know if this was a bad bottle; I just can’t tell sometimes when I’m trying a new Cantillon. The pour is murky gold with a crazed foam fading quick but leaving a sticky lace. Aroma is an almost overwhelming blast of sour milk, sulfur, wet leather, horrible cheese. Above all that is a positively out of place and grossly overdone blanket of bad chablis drenched in butter. Luckily most of the buttery assault seems to get left at the door. Flavor is mild enough, sweetish for a Cantillon, fruity, not maddeningly sour as it’s toned down by the fruit. There’s plenty of funk and cheese, some leather, grapeskin astringency. The smell of this stuff was just too much for me to handle.

Corked and capped green bottle. Bottled in 2003. Classic lambic house aroma from Cantillon, a rush of vinegar and sour citrus and wild yeast, with a touch of woody grape. Noisy golden pour, clear with a short and aggressive white head. Taste is intensely sour, tart and acidic with the muscat rounding the taste off a bit from their regular gueuze. Notes of honey and wood. Very dry. Medium-full body. I like the mellow take from this brewer - though I still wouldn’t want to drink it with a cut or sore in my mouth, this stuff isn’t exactly eating through tissue.

2001 vintage shared with egajdzis at Monk’s. Golden-peach body with a loose champagne head. Has some fruit peel sour/bitterness. An interesting lambic in that the flavor comes from Muscat grapes so the fruitiness is refined. As a result, there is no overbearing fruit flavor in this lambic and no wine cooler effect. Very sour but nice as a slow sipper.

Hazy yellow body with barnyard funk and wine character. The muscat does manage to peak through the funky body giving it a nice mellow character.

Aroma:cheese,acide and withe wine... Appearance:hazy gold,light head... Flavor:cheese,withe wine,acide......