Before publishing a cross-note of tastings of truly vintage Trois Rivières rums (from 1953 to 2006), let's take a moment to consider the Princesse vintage. Trois Rivières, with a great deal of publicity, is announcing a new era: new design, new products, new trend, and this vintage seems to be the central point. And for good reason, it is a blend of 50 vintages from 8 vintages, no less... We will come back to this idea which raises many questions, but for the moment let's focus on this princess, who has been alone for far too long.

Price : 200€ for an 'ultra' limited edition, but the strength of marketing is to see it everywhere, so there is surely some somewhere. 70cl, 43°.

Age : indecent to ask, because first of all she is a princess, and because secondly we know absolutely nothing about it. This is not the aim of this rum, and looking for the beginning of an answer would be like looking for a needle in a haystack.

Trois Rivières clearly announces it: the Princesse vintage is "one of the greatest vintages from the plantation". The risk is measured since it is in fact a "very limited" series, and therefore rare enough to prevent the greatest number of people from having the privilege of tasting it. Go figure... The marketing is beyond me and makes my head spin... Why deprive the vast majority of consumers of one of the "greatest vintages"? Certainly to get people talking. Bling-bling rum is all the rage at the moment. But if it's good, that may be the main thing, to tell the truth...

The dress, because it is a dress more than usual, is bronze, almost coppery, and the legs of our princess are fat and oily (the kind of princess who comes out of a swamp). Not the color or the presence that we imagine of a princess to tell the truth, but let's not push the vices of marketing too far, we would regret it very quickly.

On the nose it is very sweet, very delicate, and not unpleasant at all; but one wonders where this princess hid the rum? Smells of chewing gum (fruit malabar), a little artificial, almond too. It is honeyed, blond, it smells of dried fruits (raisins) and flowers, with citrus fruits (grapefruit, zest, acidity), and more honey... but? Where is the cane, where is Trois Rivières? We move a little further away from the rum, and the rest brings nothing more, and maybe a little less. Let's move on to the mouth which we hope will promise just as much sweetness and delicacy.

At this point, I am lost for words... The idea of ​​this vintage was to make a sort of perfume, which is quite successful on the nose, but why do the same thing on the palate? The attack is soft but quickly becomes difficult and aggressive, acidic and bitter, and becomes acrid to the point of sticking to the palate. The (vicious) tannins stand out to make you grimace, juicy and freshly squeezed citrus fruits galore (grapefruit, pomelo), for a truly strange mouth and very very far from an image of a princess, a thousand miles from the so polished nose.

The rum continues on its way and heads towards the exit with these same citrus notes and all this acidity, these tannins and this bitterness. It is moderately long, with a nice persistence however, but not very pleasant, dry and without artifice, with the disturbing taste of a woody and humid juice. Neither princess nor delicacy, it fled before entering the mouth, well aware of an ambient and ambiguous unease (let's not forget that it has 50 vintages in front of it, nothing very reassuring for a young lady). We will perhaps find it in other vintages.

What a shame not to have released vintages instead of making this improbable blend; playing with nature is not always good. At first, I had trouble understanding how the blend of so many vintages (and vintages) could give something so clean on the nose (without a little magic)... but the palate quickly answered me. You might wonder if we really asked the cellar master to taste, or just to release a 'perfumed rum'. The nose has the allure of a princess (the one from your childhood, who smells of candy and full of good feelings), the palate moves away from it dramatically and will quickly bring you back down to earth. Ladies, this drink will surely flatter your nose (it even flattered my feminine side) but beware of the backlash. It may really be a perfume.

We are in a critical phase, where the feeling of novelty and immediacy distorts the very essence of rum. Today, all it takes is to dress up a bottle and invent a story for it to promise it a bright future. We are playing on a pseudo-rarity for a product that does not respond to any logic, that is so far removed from rum, and that will surely be forgotten as quickly as it came. Welcome to planned obsolescence, all money in rum sauce.

We still hope that Trois Rivières will continue to make rum. Note: 61

Let us remember that there is no accounting for taste, as evidenced by Alexandre Vingtier's opinion on the Princesse vintage:

http://www.infosbar.com/Infosbar-Special-Rhum-Fest-Paris-2015-Interview-Alexandre-Vingtier-Part-5-9_a8805.html

To help you (and me) find your way around, regarding the notes:

90 and + : exceptional and unique rum, it is the best of the best
between 85 and 89 : highly recommended rum, with that little something that makes the difference
between 80 and 84 : recommendable rum
75-79 POINTS : above average
70-74 POINTS : in the low average
less than 70 : not very good

Review courtesy of DuRhum.com.

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