Lovely French Polynesian Pineapple Wine, yum!

Pineapple wine from French Polynesia? You bet!

Pineapple wine and tropical paradise go hand in hand, don’t they? After spending a wonderful week visiting a few of the countless islands of French Polynesia, I was able to treat myself to one of the many local delicacies.

The area here is lush with amazing fruit, ample sunshine, just enough rain honestly some of the friendliest people on earth.

One of these delicacies is the Manatea Tahiti Pineapple wine. A wonderful fruit wine that expresses the beauty of the region.

The fruit comes from the “Queen Tahiti” pineapple variety, considered to be one of the best pineapple varieties in the world for its taste and perfumed aroma. The pineapples used for this wine grows in the caldera of the former volcano of Moorea island, just beside the main island of Tahiti.

The fruit itself is grown organically as there is not need for chemical treatments in the growing process. The growers practice integrated farm management in all that they do and this makes a big difference in the final product.

The winemaking process includes cool fermentation, specialty enzyme use and “batonage” which give the wine a very soft, full and silky smooth finish. The finished wines are ages in medium toasted French oak barrels to add to the complexity of the wine and increase its already well structured body.

This very fragrant wine needs to be drunk cold, ideally at the 8-9’C range. It goes amazingly well with any vanilla based deserts, fish (think Mahi Mahi) and most cream based salads.

The winery also makes an excellent sparkling wine, also from pineapples. Both of them are worth a try.

If you don’t have to chance to make it to French Polynesia, you can always have a glass of this pineapple wine, close your eyes and imagine yourself on a beach, under a coconut tree listening to the ukulele in the warm sunshine, it would be just about as good as the real thing 😉

Happy fruit wine drinking!