A few weeks after we published our interview with the founders of Swirl — the Stockholm app trying to fix what Vivino got wrong about how we actually discover wine — I ended up at a friend’s birthday party in France and watched exactly the kind of scene the Swirl piece had been about: a group of people picking out a very specific bottle for a very specific person.
The person was a local poet. He has a habit of reciting Igor Severyanin’s 1915 futurist poem “Ananasy v Shampanskom” — “Pineapples in Champagne” — from memory, in Russian, at the pitch of the evening when everyone is a couple of glasses in. Our friends came with a wrapped bottle for him: a sparkling wine made not from grapes, but from pineapples. Ordered specifically for the occasion. From French Polynesia.
I had never heard of it. I ordered one for myself that same evening.
What It Is: Manutea Classic Pineapple Sparkling
The bottle is called Classic Pineapple Sparkling — 12°, made by Manutea Tahiti, a small distillery on the island of Moorea in French Polynesia. It sells for €49 for a 75cl bottle (or €39 for the smaller 37.5cl format) through Tahitian Secrets, the French online shop specializing in Polynesian food, drink and crafts.
Shipping was faster than I expected: Tahitian Secrets ships within France in 48 hours, and my bottle reached Denmark in about 7 days.
The Producer: A 40-Year-Old Distillery Between Cook’s Bay and Opunohu
Manutea Tahiti was founded in 1984 in Pihaena, on the northern coast of Moorea — one of the Society Islands, about 11 miles northwest of Tahiti. The distillery sits at the foot of Mount Rotui, the volcanic peak that separates the two famous bays of Cook and Opunohu.
It’s owned by Jus de Fruits de Moorea, the parent company that started with locally-produced fruit juices before expanding into wines, liqueurs and rums. Today Manutea produces around 230,000 bottles a year across a range that includes sparkling and still pineapple wines, dark and white rums (some distilled from pure cane juice grown on Tahaa and Moorea), pineapple, banana, vanilla and coconut liqueurs, and the well-known Polynesian cocktail Tahiti Drink that mixes pineapple, passion fruit, orange juice, vanilla and rum.
The sparkling wine specifically took six years of research with oenologists to nail down — Manutea’s marketing team has said in past interviews that pineapple must ferments very differently from grape must, and they had to develop a specific yeast strain to get the finished wine to behave the way a proper Brut should.
The Grape That Isn’t a Grape: Queen Tahiti Pineapple
The pineapple variety used is Queen Tahiti — considered one of the best pineapple varieties in the world. It’s grown in the caldera of an ancient volcano on Moorea, in red volcanic soil at the foot of Mount Rotui. It’s naturally pesticide-free, and the variety is prized for its aromatic power: smaller, sweeter and more perfumed than the Smooth Cayenne pineapples most commonly exported to Europe and the US.
The name honors the visits of Queen Victoria’s family in the 19th century, and the variety is now near-exclusive to French Polynesia.
A Bottle of Tahitian Sparkling Pineapple Wine, and Here’s What It Tastes Like
Fruity, but not sweet. Easy to drink. Golden color, fine bubbles. Serve it well chilled — between 4 and 8°C — same as any Champagne, and for the same reason: cold protects the delicate volatile aromas that make the pineapple varietal recognizable without becoming overpowering.
Honest note: it does slightly remind you of pineapple juice with added bubbles. That’s not a criticism — it’s the point. The 12% alcohol carries the fermentation character, but the fruit is unmistakable, and everyone I opened it for noticed the color the moment it hit the glass. Nobody had ever tasted anything quite like it.
Best occasions I’ve served it at so far: aperitif before dinner (excellent), pairing with a not-too-sweet fruit dessert (excellent), midway through a summer garden lunch when people were expecting the tenth glass of rosé and got this instead (best reaction of the three).
Where to Buy in Europe
The most reliable route is Tahitian Secrets — a specialist French online store that ships throughout the EU and internationally.
My delivery experience:
- Within France: 48 hours
- To Denmark (and most Northern Europe): about 7 days
The store also carries the two other Manutea pineapple wines worth trying if you want to build a small tasting flight — the Mellow Pineapple 11° (€39) and the White Dry Pineapple — plus Vahine Vanilla Cream 15° (€48) and a Tahiti Spirits Box (€98) that bundles the sparkling with traditional Polynesian pineapple sweets, if you’re buying as a gift.
For a bottle to pull out at a birthday, a summer aperitif, or the surprise element in a wine tasting flight where everyone was expecting the usual suspects — €49 delivered from the South Pacific is genuinely worth it.
Alcohol abuse is dangerous for your health. Consume in moderation. The sale of alcohol is prohibited to minors. All prices and shipping details verified against Tahitian Secrets and Manutea Tahiti at time of writing.
See tips on where to stay in French Polynesia by Helene Havard, a photographer who moved there.
