Château Léoube launches Provence gin

Provence wine estate Château Léoube has released a Mediterranean gin made with botanicals sourced from the organic estate, including olives and rosemary.

Priced at £50 for a 70cl bottle, Mediterranean Gin by Leoube is made with seven botanicals: juniper, olives, almond, orange, fennel, rosemary and mandarin.

The gin was launched in the UK on 18 September at the Daylesford Harvest Festival. Aiming to capture the signature scents of the south of France, the 41.5% ABV gin is made in partnership with a local French distillery.

Each botanical is distilled in separate copper stills using a grape base alcohol from Château Léoube.

The nose is “elegant, fruity and expressive, beginning with soft sweet citrus fruit and citrus leaves complemented by a heady bouquet of aromatic gin spices”.

The palate, meanwhile, is “smooth and complex with discreet notes of anise, pepper and rosemary on the finish”.

According to Léoube, the gin is “delicately flavoured and subtle in taste” and can be enjoyed neat, on the rocks or in cocktails that let the flavour of the gin shine.

Léoube’s signature serve combines 50ml of the gin, a bar spoon of crushed pink peppercorns, a spoon of dried orange pieces, and a spoon of Léoube olive oil.

“We wanted to share in liquid form the essence of Provence and the estate, and gin was the perfect way to do this.

“Many different botanicals were put on a table, from the traditional gin ingredients to botanicals that were available to us on the estate.

“After multiple blends we managed to create a unique flavour of Provence,” Léoube’s export director, Jérome Pernot, told db.

Léoube isn’t the first Provence estate to create a gin – last year Mirabeau launched a pink gin made with Mediterranean botanicals and a grape spirit crafted in part from its rosé.