Grey Goose Altius (1.75 L)

When Cognac-trained Maître de Chai François Thibault co-created Grey Goose in 1997, he rejected the industry's standard practice of purchasing neutral grain spirit and re-distilling it — insisting instead on full grain-to-glass control, a philosophy borrowed directly from the Charente's terroir-driven traditions and applied, provocatively, to vodka.

The wheat comes exclusively from three family-farm cooperatives in Picardy's northern plains, where a continental microclimate with winters no colder than −5 °C enables a 10-month growing cycle for soft winter wheat (blé panifiable supérieur, 100% GMO-free) — nearly double the maturation time of summer wheat, yielding denser starch and more pronounced cereal character. Grain is milled on-site at the Saint-Quentin distillery.

Fermentation runs continuously across six cascading tanks to a ~10% ABV wash; a single five-column distillation to 96% ABV deliberately preserves wheat-derived aromatics rather than stripping them. The high-proof spirit travels ~600 km to Gensac-la-Pallue, where it is blended with artesian spring water drawn from 150 m below the Champagne limestone plateau, demineralised via double reverse osmosis to pH ~5, passed through a light cellulose-and-active-carbon polish, and bottled at 40% ABV with zero additives.

The Altius 1.75 L format delivers the full house signature — cracked wheat, faint anise, mineral limestone freshness — at a scale that underlines Thibault's original transgression: a vodka that refuses to be tasteless.