Cocchi Vermouth Di Torino

Clear, bronze in colour with red glints. The bouquet shows fruity and spicy with orange peel, chocolate, Indian spice, cinnamon, smoked crispy bacon and menthol. Some dandelion and burdock. Huge, complex, fruity and raisiny with underlying spicy, citrusy bitterness over which are layered sweet flavours of liquorice, orange zest and juice, rhubarb, grapes and cocoa. The palate shows slight smokiness to the lingering, quinine, bitter-sweet finish with a slight hint of curry spice. Rich, bold, long, and well-balanced, with fruit and herbal notes complementing and intermingling with complex spices on the finish.

One of the claim to fames of Marseillan, a nice little coastal town in Languedoc, is that for the last 200 years it has been the home of Noilly Prat, the French vermouth drink. Joseph Noilly, a herbalist, developed the first formula in 1813. Apparently, the process for making Noilly Prat has changed very little over the last 200 years. The process starts off by combining two types of white wines and leaving them to mature in oak barrels for eight months. The barrels are then opened and left exposed to the sea breeze. This process alters the characteristics of the wine and it becomes darker in colour and fuller flavoured. Joseph Noilly then came up with a secret blend of 20 or so herbs that are added to the wine. The actual business of Noilly Prat was established in Marseillan in 1855, by Noilly's son Louis Noilly and his son-in-law Claudius Prat.