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CAMUT
Domaine de Sémainville
27210 LA LANDE SAINT LEGER
Tel: 02 32 57 82 01, Fax: 02 32 57 19 99
Agathe.camut@wanadoo.fr
Welcome visitors by appointment. Is quite hard to find but worth it. Very high quality award-winning and old calvados available. Genuine Pays d’Auge mansion, orchards and cellars. Represented at several fine restaurants including the Taillevent in Paris. Around 15,000 bottles (50 percent export). The Camut family has made calvados for generations. 50 years ago Adrien Camut was one of the pioneers to sell ‘calvados degustation’, good tasting calvados to restaurants (instead of the usual, low quality and cheap calvados used for ‘Café-calva’). The Camut family has about 4000 traditional high-stem apple trees just inside the Pays d’Auge. One month before harvest the cows are lead away and 25 varieties of apples are harvested at optimum maturity between October to mid-December. The yield varies from 90 to 240 tons. Before harvest in September, 90 percent of the cider that has been aged from the previous year is distilled. Three stills are used and fired with wood from apple trees, two of 3 hl from 1924 and 1928 and one of 5 hl from 1975. The stills have a unique finesse figured out by Adrien Camut. A double distillation also redistills some of the distillate continually. The calvados is aged in old oak barrels and frequently transferred to promote oxidation. To allow for a constant exchange of oxygen, a gradual reduction and concentration of the levels in the barrels are kept between 2/3 and 3/4 full. The blends are as natural as possible and are bottled unfiltered. 2001 was the first year that Camut released their pommeau, Aperitif Normand. The range also includes the 6, 12 and 18-year-olds; Reserve de Semainville (a blend of 25–30 year old), Reserve d’Adrien (35–40 years), Prestige (40–50 years) and Rareté (old enough). |
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A cow and her calf in the orchard near the Camut mansion. The grandson of the late Adrien Camut with a bottle of calvados dating from his ancestors. |
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