The Acer effect of Domaine Vallier Robert

An alcoholic drink that comes from here

Before Vallier Robert, heir to his father’s sugar shack in Auclair in the 1990s, not a single person in a checkered shirt had thought of transforming the sacred sap into a festive beverage.

Faced with plummeting syrup prices at the time, he was racking his brains to find new sources for the generous flows from his 200 trunks. Then something clicked. It was the last straw that triggered a whole adventure.

If you made wine from blueberries or honey, you could do the same with the golden wonder that sprang from your forest! So, headlong into the project of fermenting spring sap, the Témiscouatain farmer was far from crazy. “You had to be daring and persevering” admits his wife Nathalie Decaigny, sales manager of Domaine Vallier Robert (formerly known as Domaine Acer), the family business now renowned for the quality of its maple wines, almost 30 years later.

Respecting the maple tree

Thanks to a research project funded by Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada, Vallier Robert first spent five years carrying out extensive tests and internships in wine-growing environments (Alsace, California, Charente, Champagne, etc.) to demystify the process.

“He wanted to draw inspiration from wine-making methods, but without imitating them. It was important for him to respect the nature of maple. Vallier wanted to find the purity of the tree, to see what it had in its belly” continues Nathalie Decaigny.

In his forest laboratory, he developed around a hundred liquids, with the help of a chemist and cellar master. He selected four of the best, which have been on the market since 1997: a semi-dry white wine at 12% alcohol (Prémices d’avril), a brut sparkling wine at 12% alcohol (Mousse des bois) and two sweet acers at 16% alcohol (Val ambré and Charles-Aimé Robert). Two new products have since been added to the bottle family, which has won more than 28 medals.

Each acer – not to be confused with acerum, a brandy produced by distillation – has its own distinct and original personality. “People mistakenly think that our products are sweet. Nor is the taste of maple predominant. With the intervention of yeast, they develop their own aromatic signature.”

Versatile, acers go well with a wide variety of dishes and circumstances, but they get along particularly well with other Quebecois flagships. “With snow crab, it’s magical. Things that live on the same territory naturally go well together” enthuses the convincing ambassador.

And this is just the beginning…

For a long time, Domaine Vallier Robert was the only producer to fit into the product category it invented, but today it is surrounded by some twenty other Quebec producers. A number that is constantly growing.

“In the 1990s, people were turning up their noses at Quebec wines. Today, it’s quite the opposite. Microbreweries have done a lot to open people’s minds and palates. We’ve also reached a point in our history where we want to appropriate the expression of our culture and proudly brandish it” stresses Nathalie Decaigny, who has just helped found an association of acer producers.

An economuseum to visit

Thanks to its unique expertise, Domaine Vallier Robert is part of Quebec’s Economuseum circuit. Its artisan owners open their doors to visitors wishing to discover their maple syrup production skills and their expertise in making maple-based alcoholic beverages. In fact, it’s the only Economuseum in the Bas-Saint-Laurent region.

During the maple syrup season, the Domaine offers guided tours and tastings from Tuesday to Sunday, 9 am to 5 pm. You can also hike the marked trails of our organic maple grove. Various packages are available.