There’s a Completely New Type of Whisky. It’s French and Made in Concrete Eggs

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The vines on Bordeaux’s Right Bank next to the Dordogne were first planted by Roman troops and settlers in the first century CE. Known for Merlot-dominant blends, with its clay and limestone soils, this region of France delivers softer, fruitier wines. If you’re a fan of Pomerol or St-Émilion, this is your nirvana.

波尔多右岸多尔多涅河畔的葡萄藤最早由罗马军队和定居者于公元一世纪种植。该地区以梅洛为主的混酿葡萄酒而闻名，其黏土和石灰岩土壤赋予了法国葡萄酒更柔和、更具果香的特质。如果你是波美侯或圣埃美隆葡萄酒的爱好者，这里就是你的天堂。

It is here you will find Maison Lineti, happily shunning 2,000 years of tradition by making not wine, but whisky. French whisky. A thousand miles or so from the distilleries of Scotland and Ireland, this small company is making the spirit in a way whisky has never been made before.

正是在这里，你会发现 Maison Lineti，它愉快地摒弃了 2000 年的传统，不酿葡萄酒，而是酿造威士忌。法国威士忌。这家小公司距离苏格兰和爱尔兰的酿酒厂约一千英里，正以一种前所未有的方式酿造这种烈酒。

Even though Maison Lineti is not making wine, it is, in what is apparently a world first, applying wine-science methods to fermentation, distillation, and maturation for its whisky. The result is a floral, fresh, mineral, and textured spirit.

尽管 Maison Lineti 并不酿造葡萄酒，但它在威士忌的发酵、蒸馏和熟化过程中应用了葡萄酒科学方法，这显然是世界首创。其成品是一种带有花香、清新、矿物质感和丰富质感的烈酒。

After the producer hosted the prestigious World Whisky Forum in June 2025, its methods have set the industry all aflutter. Why? Not only does the product taste exceptional, Lineti’s groundbreaking techniques are bringing its spirit to the bottle years faster than traditional players using traditional processes.

在 2025 年 6 月该生产商举办了著名的世界威士忌论坛后，其方法引起了业界的轰动。为什么？不仅是因为产品口感卓越，还因为 Lineti 的开创性技术使其产品装瓶的速度比使用传统工艺的传统厂商快了数年。

The masterminds behind Maison Lineti’s wine-made whisky are Magali Picard, a chemical engineer who holds a doctorate in oenology from the University of Bordeaux, and her partner and cofounder, Alex Cosculluela. The company launched in 2018 with their friend Xavier Payan, who studied wine and spirits management alongside Cosculluela.

Maison Lineti 葡萄酒式威士忌背后的策划者是化学工程师 Magali Picard（拥有波尔多大学酿酒学博士学位）及其合伙人兼联合创始人 Alex Cosculluela。该公司于 2018 年与他们的朋友 Xavier Payan 一起创立，后者曾与 Cosculluela 一起学习葡萄酒和烈酒管理。

During pandemic lockdowns, while the rest of us dusted off gaming consoles or mined the more questionable parts of Netflix’s catalog, Picard sharpened her skills gained as a spirits development project manager at barrel-maker Demptos to research a more scientific approach to whisky-making—one that leaned far less heavily on barrel aging for flavor and instead looked to molecular science, sensory analysis, and copious amounts of data.

在疫情封锁期间，当其他人都在清理游戏机或挖掘 Netflix 目录中那些令人质疑的内容时，Picard 利用她在桶制造商 Demptos 担任烈酒开发项目经理时获得的技能，研究了一种更科学的威士忌酿造方法——这种方法不再过度依赖桶陈来获取风味，而是转向分子科学、感官分析和大量数据。

The conclusion Picard and Cosculluela came to after these experiments was this: a great spirit is decided at fermentation, not by age. “Whisky makers are very focused on the style of cask. It’s not our vision,” says Picard.

Picard 和 Cosculluela 在这些实验后得出的结论是：伟大的烈酒取决于发酵，而不是年份。“威士忌酿造商非常关注木桶的风格。这不是我们的愿景，”Picard 说。

“What we try to do is not increase the production but focus on the quality of the whisky, and more precisely on the steps before the maturation,” Picard says. “We worked on the quality of the wash—the liquid issued from the fermentation, just like in the wine industry. We worked a lot on techniques used in the wine industry. For example, the use of lactic bacteria during the fermentation, and the use of lees aging—which is a process used for champagne or Chardonnay wines to increase the rawness.”

“我们努力做的不是增加产量，而是专注于威士忌的质量，更准确地说是熟化之前的步骤，”Picard 说。“我们致力于提高酒醪（发酵产生的液体）的质量，就像葡萄酒行业一样。我们大量运用了葡萄酒行业的工艺。例如，在发酵过程中使用乳酸菌，以及使用酒泥陈酿——这是一种用于香槟或霞多丽葡萄酒以增加原始风味的工艺。”

Before fermentation, organic French barley is cold-soaked to bring out its brighter notes. Then there’s a long, seven-day fermentation that builds flavor (compared with a typical two or three days for scotch). The addition of lees aging keeps the Lineti wash in contact with the fermentation process’s dead yeast cells for a full two weeks to develop more floral and fruity aromas.

在发酵前，有机法国大麦经过冷浸泡以带出更明亮的风味。随后是长达七天的发酵过程以构建风味（相比之下，苏格兰威士忌通常只需两到三天）。增加酒泥陈酿环节使 Lineti 的酒醪与发酵过程中的死酵母细胞保持接触整整两周，从而产生更多的花香和果香。

Picard also employs malolactic fermentation, a secondary winemaking process where lactic acid bacteria convert sharp, tart malic acids into softer, creamier lactic acids. Such a process wouldn’t be allowed in scotch production, which is strictly regulated, but EU law permits such manipulation. In wine, the process would result in a softer texture, but in Lineti’s whisky, along with that creamier mouthfeel, it adds length and even more floral notes.

Picard 还采用了苹果酸-乳酸发酵，这是一种二次酿酒工艺，乳酸菌将尖锐、酸涩的苹果酸转化为更柔和、更奶油感的乳酸。这种工艺在受到严格监管的苏格兰威士忌生产中是不被允许的，但欧盟法律允许这种操作。在葡萄酒中，该过程会产生更柔和的质地，但在 Lineti 的威士忌中，除了更奶油般的口感外，它还增加了余味长度和更多的花香。

Maison Lineti’s wine-based, science-laden fermentation process happens in the “egg box”—a remarkable space housing seven giant concrete, egg-shaped fermenters that reach to the ceiling. Cosculluela says the concrete allows for precise temperature control, as the material much thicker than the stainless steel that’s typically used. Additionally, the lack of internal ridges in the eggs supposedly make for better movement and churn of the liquid when the yeasts are fermenting.

Maison Lineti 基于葡萄酒、充满科学气息的发酵过程发生在“蛋箱”中——这是一个非凡的空间，容纳了七个直达天花板的巨型混凝土蛋形发酵罐。Cosculluela 表示，混凝土允许精确的温度控制，因为这种材料比通常使用的不锈钢厚得多。此外，蛋形罐内部没有棱角，据称在酵母发酵时能使液体更好地运动和搅动。

The tangible gains from all this work before the fruits of their labor go into barrels are not merely limited to improved and distinctive flavor profiles. Cosculluela claims that Maison Lineti’s pre-maturation may well take weeks longer than other makers, but, crucially, it saves two to four years of barrel aging. This is how Maison Lineti’s relatively young whisky somewhat magically goes toe-to-toe with single malt scotch that is many years older.

在他们的劳动成果进入木桶之前，所有这些工作带来的切实收益不仅仅局限于改进和独特的风味特征。Cosculluela 声称，Maison Lineti 的预熟化过程可能比其他制造商多花几周时间，但关键在于，它节省了二到四年的桶陈时间。这就是为什么 Maison Lineti 相对年轻的威士忌能神奇地与陈年多年的单一麦芽苏格兰威士忌相媲美。

It also means Cosculluela and Picard end up with more booze for their buck. A faster maturation to a minimum viable product, if you will, means the angels get to steal less of Maison Lineti’s produce. The “angel’s share” is the portion of whisky that naturally evaporates through the porous wood of the casks into the atmosphere during the spirit’s aging process. Simply put, less time in Lineti’s barrels means less whisky disappears.

这也意味着 Cosculluela 和 Picard 能以更低的成本获得更多的酒。更快的熟化速度达到最小可行产品，意味着“天使”从 Maison Lineti 的产品中偷走的更少。“天使份额”是指威士忌在陈酿过程中通过木桶的多孔木材自然蒸发到大气中的那部分。简而言之，在 Lineti 的木桶中存放的时间越短，消失的威士忌就越少。

“Every year you lose 2 percent of your whisky, so you need to produce approximately 20 percent more than the final volume you will need at 10 years,” Cosculluela says. “So if you work on the drinkability to get something really tasty and balanced in three years, you save a lot of raw material, a lot of space in your warehouse, and a lot of energy.”

“每年你会损失 2% 的威士忌，所以你需要比 10 年后所需的最终产量多生产大约 20%，”Cosculluela 说。“因此，如果你致力于提升适饮性，在三年内获得真正美味且平衡的产品，你就能节省大量的原材料、仓库空间和能源。”

However, for Picard, this use of these winemaking skills and methods is not enough to ensure success for Maison Linetti—comprehensive data analysis is also key. Excel files document some 10,000 lines of data per batch production.

然而，对于 Picard 来说，仅使用这些酿酒技能和方法不足以确保 Maison Lineti 的成功——全面的数据分析也是关键。Excel 文件记录了每批生产约 10,000 行的数据。