CDI Caraïbes – Sauternes Cask Finish (Perola)

CDI Caraibes Sauternes Cask Finish, the Perola edition, is a single cask release from Compagnie des Indes, the French house known for terroir led bottlings. This one sits in CDI's entry tier, a six year molasses rum finished in a Sauternes wine cask and lightly, openly sweetened, bottled at 43%.

The Sauternes finish drives the character. The nose offers wine, sugarcane, honey and grapes, the palate turns sweet with wine, spice and baked apple, and the finish brings burnt sugar, toasted wood and nutmeg. The sweet wine cask and the light dosage together make this a soft, sweet pour, so it reads as an easy sipper rather than a dry one, and drinkers recommend it on that basis over harsher sweetened rivals. The integration is gentle rather than tightly knit, and the finish stays fairly mild, but as a relaxed, dessert leaning glass with a wine cask twist it does what it sets out to do.