Definition: cooked wine

Coignarde, Vin-cuit, Raisinée, products derived from rural traditions

Vin-cuit, raisinée, coignarde, cougnarde... So many names for what is, all things considered, a fairly similar product!

Our parents and grandparents knew, out of necessity, the specific characteristics of the fruit in their orchards. Each fruit was used to its best advantage, whether for family consumption or for feeding livestock.

They knew that Douce apples and Muscat pears made excellent reductions. Mocatelet and Fernatte pears were dried to make "crotchettes" or "schnetz". Caloué pears were cooked into compote, candied or sterilised. Others with hard flesh, such as the Botsi or Fer pear, were perfect as an accompaniment to meat. The Cordier pear, on the other hand, was reserved for cider. This empirical knowledge, passed down from generation to generation, was maintained as long as orchard fruit played an essential role in the rural economy.

In gastronomy, cooked wine is wine in name only. In fact, it is a slow reduction of a mixture of apples and pears. Old varieties of fruit that were not very edible raw but improved when cooked were used to produce what is also known as "grape juice". Pears must predominate for the raisinée to be sweet. The more apples you use, the more acidic it will be. In the past, it was a way of using up surpluses in years of abundance. The harvest is first taken to the press, then the liquid is left to bubble for about twenty hours. The liquid loses about 90% of its volume. A hundred kilos of fruit produces only about seven litres of raisinée, which is then bottled. Very ancient traces of various fruit reductions have been discovered among the Sumerians of Egypt and ancient Rome, who made it a custom. Vincuit is currently enjoying a revival in gastronomy for meat sauces (game), paired with spicy or sweet and sour flavours (cooked wine vinegar), for smoked meats, black pudding or foie gras and, of course, in pastries for the famous cooked wine tart. See raisinée.