Cachaça Patrimônio

Pirassununga (São Paulo) is not only home of the biggest cachaça distillery in Brazil (the famous industrial ‘51’) and home of one of the best artisan cachaça distilleries of Brazil (Sapucaia); but there are many other small artisan cachaça producers in the area.

One of them is the Fazenda Guadalupe. Not really a name you want to put on your label if you don’t want to confuse your consumers with Guadeloupe rhum, so good thing their cachaça was baptized ‘Patrimônio’

The cachaça is bottled in a rather a-typical bottle of 600 cc – almost like a beer bottle – with an alcohol percentage of 44%. Matured in bálsamo casks, but only for a very limited time (3 months). Normally bálsamo matured cachaças tend to be very herbal and punchy, and often used in blends.  Now let’s find out what a short maturation in bálsamo does to a cachaça.

The Cachaça: Patrimônia
Region: Pirassununtga, São Paulo
Distilled: 2013/2014
Bottled: 2014 (lot 1401)
Matured: Balsamo wood – 3 months
ABV: 44%

Nose:  extremely pleasant aroma with a perfect balance between the sugarcane and the herbal  wood aroma. Despite its youth and alcohol content very smooth.  Fresh, with hints of ozone and even some iodine. This is very, very promising indeed! Give it a few minutes in the glass, and out pop the sweet ricola-herbs accompanied by delicate white flowers. Herbal honey!

Taste: there are many cachaças that attack on the first taste to get smoother after. This is the exact opposite. The first impression is delicate, with sweet herbs and fine wood, all of a sudden getting hotter and much more spicy. Rather sweet for a cachaça, but who cares, this is just superb pinga!  Now let’s see what a drop of water does. Oh boy…adding a drop of water makes the floral notes that were camouflaged by the spicy peppery flavors  coming right out now. If the nose was very promising, we can only say that the taste delivers all the good things that were promised!

Finish: again a perfect balance between herbal and woody flavors, with the typical grassy sugarcane almost all gone now. Seems to linger on forever. What a long finish this-one has! Retro-olfactoric some cinnamon and all-spice.

Our Score: **** Oh yeah.. This is so delicate, so well balanced, and with a finish that seems to go on forever. Kudo’s to the distiller, this is what makes good cachaça great!
If we really have to say something negative, it would be : why isn’t this available in Europe yet???