Version Française : Silvae

Characteristics and Tasting Notes for Silvae by Version Française

Tasting

Colour
A seductive golden amber hue, reflecting the youth of its distillate and the rich influence of its multiple oak casks.

Nose
Complex and refined, the bouquet opens with indulgent notes of salted butter caramel, vanilla cream and coconut milk. It then evolves towards exotic, spicy aromas of dried flowers, incense, cinnamon and ginger, enhanced by fruity touches of orange sweets and candied apricot.

Palate
The palate opens round and silky. It reveals a lovely harmony of bourbon vanilla, cardamom and sandalwood. Notes of candied citrus, such as kumquat and mandarin, intertwine with grated ginger. The remarkably long finish unfolds woody, resinous flavours, enriched with nutmeg, clove, mocha, dark chocolate and blond tobacco.

Food Pairing Tips and Tasting Moments

This single malt shines through its versatility. It pairs wonderfully with sweet-and-savoury dishes such as honey-glazed salmon or duck breast with a citrus reduction. As for cheese, an aged Comté or Beaufort will echo its caramelised notes. It also enhances Asian flavours, such as miso black cod, and contrasts elegantly with the saltiness of fine charcuterie like Bayonne ham. For dessert, pair it confidently with a crème brûlée or a tarte Tatin.

Mixology

Thanks to its balanced profile and 46%, this whisky offers a wonderful playground. It brilliantly reinvents the classics: try it as a Silvae Old Fashioned, where its natural sweetness reduces the need for sugar, or as a Silvae Manhattan. For a bolder touch, its sandalwood notes come through beautifully in a Japanese-inspired creation with yuzu juice and a dash of matcha syrup, or simply lengthened as a Highball with tonic or ginger ale.

Other Characteristics

This French single malt is unpeated, allowing the complexity of its wood ageing to fully express itself. It is bottled at 46.0% vol. in a 70cl format, without a gift box.

An Innovative Whisky by Version Française

Version Française: The Expression of Terroir by La Maison & Velier

Owned by La Maison & Velier, a renowned spirits merchant based in Clichy, Version Française has established itself as an innovative player on the global whisky scene. The brand stands out for its meticulous approach to ageing, rejecting mere imitation in favour of a genuine reinterpretation of French terroir. By partnering with the Warenghem distillery, located in Côtes-d'Armor in Brittany and led by David Roussier, Version Française benefits from a high-quality distillate shaped by an ideal maritime climate. The brand's identity is built on complete transparency and exceptional technical mastery of the science of wood, perfectly illustrating the meeting of Breton distilling expertise with its owner's blending and finishing know-how.

Silvae: An Unprecedented Mastery of Oak Blending

This Silvae is a highly technical single malt whisky, the result of a singular production method. Its name, taken from the Latin word for "forests", immediately reveals its wood-centred philosophy. The raw material, an unpeated distillate from the Warenghem distillery, first undergoes an initial ageing period of 44 months in ex-bourbon casks.

Silvae's major innovation lies in its second maturation phase. For three and a half years, this French whisky undergoes simultaneous finishing in an exclusive, meticulously calibrated blend of four new oak casks of different species. Pride of place goes to fine-grained Breton oak (38%), shaped by Brittany's last remaining cooper, deeply rooting the spirit in its terroir. This is complemented by 30% Japanese mizunara oak, renowned for being complex to work with, 22% intensely charred American white oak, and 10% coarse-grained French oak to give the whole its structure.

This simultaneous, rather than sequential, approach allows for exceptional integration of the aromatic compounds from each wood species. Bottled at 46%, this whisky challenges the conventions of maturation to offer an entirely new sensory experience.