Nouaison is the moment a vine flower becomes a grape, and this gin contains both. The base is distilled out of Ugni Blanc, the grape that makes Cognac, and vine flower sits on the botanical list alongside it, so the bottle holds the plant at two stages of the same year. Maison Villevert works in Cognac and bottles at 45%.

A grape base is the first departure and it shows in the texture: rounder and softer than grain, with a faint winey edge that puts weight on the tongue before a single botanical is counted. The vine flower is the second, and it is delicate, faintly green and floral, a note no other producer has to hand. Around them the list is long and deliberately exotic. Lime and bergamot lead the citrus, the first sharp and the second perfumed. Green cardamom and ginger root supply the cool and the warm halves of the spice, with nutmeg and cubeb berries adding depth behind. Quassia amara contributes a clean bitterness. Then the base notes arrive, and they belong more to perfumery than to distilling: sandalwood creamy and soft, vetiver earthy and dry, and plum filling the middle with a dark fruit sweetness. Liquorice lengthens the close and juniper holds throughout.

A gin this structured suits stirred drinks. A Negroni and a Martini are both named by the producer and both are right, since the grape base gives the spirit enough body to stand against vermouth. Mixed long, the tonic stays neutral and the ice generous. Lemon or grapefruit peel above; nothing sweetened. Gold at San Francisco in 2018. Using the flower and the fruit of one plant is the sort of idea only a producer sitting in a vineyard arrives at, and it gives the bottle a sense of place that a botanical list alone never manages. It closes floral, spiced and round.