Thursday, November 20, 2008

Interestingly Oxidized Wine

Roucaillat from Hautes Terres de Comberousse

I have a 1996 Vin Jaune d'Arbois that I can't wait to drink. I blogged about this wine in June and it was titled "Local Crazies and Old Yellow Wine" in case you are interested. The local crazies part made me giggle tonight when I read it again. Anyway, I plan to drink this wine with friends over Thanksgiving this year.

Thinking about it lead me to my local wine shop, and to question the shop keep, "I understand if you do not have any vin jaune, but do you have anything that is that unusual and interesting?". I am always looking for new interesting wines, and I enjoy learning about the novel wine making processes as much as the wines themselves. It just so happened that the shop had something pretty interesting. Not a vin jaune, but nice nonetheless.

Now the key to the interesting flavor of a vin jaune is the fact that it slow ferments and ages in a cask for SIX years before it goes into a bottle. On top of that, the cask is never topped off, so there is a lot of oxidation.

Well, the wine I got tonight is fermented/aged for a more normal period of time, on the order of months rather than years, but at a higher temperature than normal, and with more oxygen allowed to enter the barrel than normal. It is from the Coteaux du Languedoc and it is called Roucaillat.



Sounds a bit technical and boring? Okay, forget all that. It tastes like a really light sherry. Claudia hates it, as she does vin jaune, and I love it. Also... I really love to hear these stories.

happy drinking,
-PMo

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

i love this wine! while i agree about the sherry notes, my impression was also a sort of petroly (might not sound appetizing) dense and powerful quality. as a red wine drinker who can't drink the stuff anymore, i found this as satisfying and complex as a red, but felt that many white wine drinkers might not go for it. nice to see it here. thx!