Le Paulmier
Le Paulmier is a small artisanal vinaigrerie in Normandy, set on the south-western edge of the Pays d'Auge between the valleys of Camembert and Livarot. It makes vinegars and condiments from the raw materials of that countryside, cider apples and perry pears above all, and from the wild plants of its pastures, hedgerows and forests.
The house
The house takes its name from Julien Le Paulmier, a sixteenth-century Norman physician whose treatise on wine and cider, published in 1588, was one of the first serious studies of the apple and its drink. The reference is a statement of intent: this is a maker that sees itself as a defender of the natural riches of the Pays d'Auge, a landscape of orchards, dairy pasture and hedgerows that it describes as fragile and exceptionally diverse. The vinaigrerie is led by Benoît, and its products draw on old links between orchard and hedgerow that have largely been forgotten.
The methods are the classic ones, done slowly. Cider is made from local sweet and bittersweet apple varieties grown in traditional open orchards, goes through alcoholic fermentation, and is then turned into vinegar by traditional acetic fermentation, some of it acetified on wood. After that it matures for at least six months in oak or acacia casks. Some vinegars are then macerated in barrels with plants gathered from the spontaneous flora: wild garlic from the alder groves, elderflower, the young shoots of Douglas fir from the forests of the Orne, or verbena. A few are smoked over local hardwoods.
The house's signature is La Pommée, which it calls an apple balsamic. Rather than starting from fermented alcohol, it begins with fresh apple must reduced over a wood fire, which is then married to a cider-apple acidulate aged for five years. The result is glossy, slightly syrupy and much gentler than an ordinary vinegar, close to the fruit, with a sweetness that never becomes cloying. It is the kind of bottle chefs keep as a quiet secret ingredient, used wherever a balsamic would be used elsewhere.
What they make
Clipperton carries the core of the range.
- Cider vinegar — the organic Apple Cider Vinegar, from estate ciders, aged at least six months in casks.
- La Pommée — the original La Pommée Apple Vinegar, the double-smoked La Pommée Smoked, and the seasonal La Pommée des Bois, macerated with chestnuts, acorns and roasted hazelnuts.
- Infused vinegars — Wild Garlic, hand-picked in April; Elderflower; Fir, with its lemon and lemongrass notes; and Rice and Rice & Verbena vinegars made from Camargue rice.
Find them all in the Le Paulmier collection.
Why Clipperton chose them
Clipperton is a family importer, and we build our catalog on direct relationships with small makers who do one thing with real care. Le Paulmier makes vinegar the way a good cider house makes cider: from named apple varieties, fermented and aged without hurry, in a place where you can taste the hedgerow in the bottle. La Pommée in particular has become one of the products we are proudest to introduce to Canada and the United States, because there is simply nothing like it on this side of the Atlantic. We tell the longer story of French vinegar, and of La Pommée, in our Journal: French vinegar, the quiet secret of the French kitchen.
