All activities / Wine / Spirits Education / Chamarel
Wine / Spirits Education in Chamarel
A village in the forested hills of south-west Mauritius, best known for the Seven Coloured Earths and a waterfall, and for the agricultural rum distilleries that press their spirit straight from fresh cane juice. The cool valley grows the sugarcane that goes into some of the island's most awarded rhum agricole.
Why here
Mauritius grows more sugarcane than almost anything else, and Chamarel is where you learn what the island does with it beyond sugar. In a green valley above the south-west coast, La Rhumerie de Chamarel presses juice straight from its own hand-cut cane and distils rhum agricole, the French-Caribbean style made from fresh cane juice rather than molasses, a category that most rum-drinkers have never knowingly tasted. A tour walks you from the field through fermentation, column and pot stills and oak ageing to a guided tasting of white, aged and spiced rums, so you leave understanding why cane-juice rum tastes grassy and floral where molasses rum tastes of toffee. Half an hour east, the far older Rhumerie de Saint Aubin has been distilling on its colonial estate since 1819 and runs its own Atelier du Rhum tasting workshop, so the two make a proper southern rum route. This is the island's stand-in for a wine region: a producer landscape you can taste your way through, with the added local twist of vanilla, coffee and spiced rums you will not find at home.
Best months
The distilleries are open and running tours year round, generally Monday to Saturday with a break on Sunday, so this is a rain-or-shine, any-season activity. The cane harvest and active distilling season runs roughly from July to December, when the presses and stills are busiest and you are most likely to see production rather than just the equipment. Tours and tastings run in English and French and last around forty minutes to an hour; tastings involve spirits, so bring a designated driver or book a tour with transport.
Getting there & around
Chamarel is in the south-west hills, about 25 minutes up from the coast at Le Morne or Black River on a winding road, and is easily combined with the Seven Coloured Earths, the Chamarel waterfall and the Black River Gorges in one day. La Rhumerie de Chamarel sits in the valley just below the village; La Rhumerie de Saint Aubin is about a 30 to 40 minute drive east near Souillac in the Savanne district. Both have estate restaurants, so a tour, tasting and lunch make a natural half-day. Because tastings involve spirits, arrange a driver.
Skill levels: beginner
Schools & guides (2)
La Rhumerie de Chamarel
SchoolLa Rhumerie de Chamarel is a working estate distillery set at three hundred metres in the Chamarel valley, surrounded by its own sugarcane and tropical fruit. It makes rhum agricole distilled from pure fresh-pressed cane juice rather than molasses, and its guided tour walks visitors through harvesting, distillation in column and pot stills and ageing in oak, ending in a tasting of white, aged and flavoured rums. The estate restaurant, L'Alchimiste, cooks with produce grown on the property.
La Rhumerie de Saint Aubin
SchoolLa Rhumerie de Saint Aubin sits on a colonial sugar estate in the south of Mauritius whose distilling history dates to 1819. It produces rhum agricole from pure sugarcane juice, and its Atelier du Rhum tour traces the story of sugar and rum on the island before a guided tasting and cocktail workshop. The estate keeps a vanilla plantation and gardens and serves Mauritian dishes in the veranda restaurant of its old planter's house, about a half-hour drive east of Chamarel.