Domaine des Hautes Glaces is unlike any other whisky distillery in the world. Founded in 2009 by Frédéric Révol and Jérémy Bricka in the Trièves valley of the French Alps, at nearly 900 metres altitude, it is a true grain-to-glass operation: the barley is grown organically on the surrounding mountain farms, malted on site, fermented, distilled and matured all within the same alpine estate. There are no shortcuts and no outsourcing — every grain is traceable to the field it came from.
Empreinte — French for imprint or fingerprint — is the distillery's flagship single malt, and the name is no accident. This is whisky as a record of place: the alpine air, the granite soils, the pure mountain water, the slow cool fermentations made possible by the high altitude. The result is a malt of extraordinary clarity and freshness, with herbal and floral notes drawn directly from the surrounding meadows.
In 2017 the distillery was acquired by Rémy Cointreau, but the founding philosophy of organic, biodynamic, terroir-driven whisky has been preserved. Empreinte remains an artisan bottling, made in small batches and bottled non-chill-filtered at cask strength or near it.
To drink Empreinte is to taste the Alps in liquid form. It is light-footed but deeply complex, austere yet generous, and utterly without parallel in the wider whisky world. For drinkers who believe terroir matters as much in spirits as in wine, Domaine des Hautes Glaces is essential — and Empreinte its purest statement.
