Each month I talk about how great the shipment is, and this month is no exception. In fact, I’m pretty sure that this month is the best group of wines I have put together for this club yet. We have an unusual little sparkler that I have grown to love from France’s Limoux region of Languedoc featuring the esoteric and delightful grape Mauzac. Then we have what is certainly the best Prosecco that I have ever tasted. And from Champagne, a bottle that almost belies description. A 2000 vintage Grower-Producer Champagne from the Montagne de Reims that wasn’t disgorged until late 2008, and has more character in a drop than most giant producer Champagnes have in an entire case.
As the weather gets nicer, remember that sparkling wine was made for drinking outside.
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This delicious little sparkler from Languedoc has been one of my restaurant go to wines for as long as I can remember. It’s unusual in every way, starting with it’s exceptional history. Though it’s claims have been mostly, but not totally convincingly, debunked, Limoux claims to be France’s first sparkling wine, claiming that monks from the abbey of St. Hilaire were making the methode ancestrale (this means that the wine doesn’t go through two fermentations, but rather is bottled during a pause in the original fermentation, which re-starts after the wine is bottles producing a soft froth, and a usually sweet wine – one of these might show up in a future shipment!) version of this wine back in the 1500 hundreds. The only real proof is some letters from the King’s officer at the time ordering wine (though it doesn’t mention whether it is sparkling or not) for he King.
My ambivalence about Prosecco is only exceeded by my love of sparkling wines. It is because of this enduring love that I keep trying wines made from Prosecco though they so often dissapoint . . . Thank goodness! I recently tasted this wine from San Giovanni, and, well, it’s delcious.
But even the DOC wines can be confusing, as the DOC doesn’t require that the wines be sparkling: in fact, the wine can be still (rare), frizzante (partially sparkling), or spumante (fully sparkling). The best, are usually Spumante, but every once and a while, there is a great frizzante Prosecco. Even then, you don’t have a a garauntee of quality, as the prescribed method of making Prosecco sparkling is the Cuve Close method, which means that the wines undergoe their second fermentation in a pressurized tank and are bottled under pressure. This is not a necessarily inferior process, but Cuve Close does allow the possibility of speeding up the secondary fermentation to a point that virtually eliminates contact with the lees, which are what give method Champenoise sparkling wines their character.
happiest home. But A. Margaine has long produced superior wines, even among the other small Chardonnay growers in the village. Certainly it is their attention to detail, and their desire to keep up with the current mode of winemaking (they have recently stepped back from a perhaps overly trendy reduction in dosage, that produced mixed results). But there is also something special about Margaine’s winemaking that captures perfectly the unique blend of tropical showiness and racy minerality that makes Villers Champagne so special.
the bottle, and is tasted and approved by the Club’s panel both in compenents before it is blended and immediately after disgorgement, prior to release. This wine often represents the best wine that these small producers make.