Limoux a perfect companion for a Chinese snack
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ISACS is the founder and CEO of EnjoyGourmet, a leading gourmet digital (www.enjoygourmet.com.cn) and print media company in China. He has authored over a dozen wine and food books including the awarded ISACS Guides and other gourmet books and is a wine consultant to governments, wine regions and organizations. He also hosts wine events for leading organizations and companies throughout China. Contact John via jcolumn@enjoygourmet.com.
Summertime snacking with wines is a sublime seasonal pleasure. Sitting at a café on one of Shanghai’s tree laden roads sipping a refreshing wine while munching on a tasty treat helps mitigate the obsessive heat and pressures of city life. The feature article of today’s iDeal section delves into the delicious world of traditional Chinese snacks. Should you wish to partake in these yummy morsels any time soon, then I have the perfect wine partner.
The Languedoc sub-appellation of Limoux is located in the eastern foothills of the Pyrenees Mountains in Southern France. The region’s climate features a grape friendly combination of sunny Mediterranean days and cooler Atlantic night time influences that lead to slow and long ripening seasons. These conditions also bequeath abundant fruit, acidity and complexity to wines. This is especially true of the region’s sparkling wines.
Wines have been made in and around Limoux for thousands of years. When Bordeaux was still mostly a swampland and Burgundy was a barren of grapes, vintners in Limoux were already making distinguished wines. This is also the home of the wine world’s first bubbles. Due to some clever marketing, there are still some wine lovers among us who believe that sparkling wines were invented in Champagne by the Benedictine monk Dom Perignon. In fact, slightly effervescent or slightly sparkling wines have existed for over 2,000 years, but these wines were very lightly or semi-sparkling at best. The first true sparkling wine was made in Limoux.
The hardworking and ingenious monks of Saint Hilaire Abbey, in Limoux, first made the traditional method sparklers in 1531, which is more than a century before Dom Perignon and the monks put bubbles into wines. We can give Dom credit for helping to refine the second fermentation in the bottle process, we now refer to as Methode Champenoise or traditional method, but he definitely followed in the footsteps of his brethren monks of Saint Hilaire. Local legend has it that in the 17th century Dom Perignon visited the Saint Hilaire Abbey and brought back this special process back to Champagne.
Though Champagne has eclipsed Limoux in fame and renown, some wonderful sparkling wines are still made in this historic southern French town. The wines are stylistically slightly different than Champagnes but the better examples are qualitatively the equals of many Champagnes.
The major grape in the region is Mauzac, a thin-skinned, late ripening grape that tends to make zesty and acidic wines with apple and floral qualities. The two other permitted varieties for making sparkling wines in Limoux are Chardonnay and Chenin Blanc.
There are three distinct styles and AOCs of sparkling wine, namely, Blanquette Methode Ancestrale, Blanquette de Limoux and Cremant de Limoux. The first style is made mostly by hand in the same manner as the Saint Hilaire monks made their first sparkler in the 16th century. This traditional style of Mauzac sparkling wine has no disgorgement so there’s a cloudy residue of dead yeast sediments in the wine, but the flavors and unique texture of the wine truly stand out. The wines are also slightly sweet and relatively low in alcohol, at or below 7 percent. If you wish to try a true old-fashion styled sparkler, this is the wine for you.
The second style, Blanquette de Limoux must be at least 90 percent Mauzac with Chardonnay and Chenin Blanc comprising the rest of the blend. This wine showcases the potential of the Mauzac variety to make modern-styled sparkling wines.
The third type Crement de Limoux is the most modern and international style of wine that is made of 40 to 70 percent Chardonnay, 20 to 40 percent Chenin Blanc and 10 to 20 percent Mauzac. These wines must be aged at least one year on the lees before release. Similar to Champagne the sparkling wines from Limoux come in brut, semi-sweet and Demi-Sec sweet styles.
The good news is that Limoux sparkling wines, in additional to being exceedingly food friendly, are also among the most affordable high-quality sparklers in the world. The bad news is that they’re fairly difficult to find in Shanghai.
But there’s one very notable exception. My favorite Limoux producer is the family-owned winery Antech. The family has been making sparklers for six generations and the quality of their wines is comparable to the wines of famous Champagne houses.
Their Blanquette de Limoux Tradition Brut is perfect with salty and savory Chinese snacks, while the Blanquette de Limoux Demi Sec is great with sweet and spicy snacks.
The Antech Blanquette Methode Ancestrale Doux et Fruite is a wonderful taste of the past, while the Cremant de Limoux Cuvee Eugenie and Crement de Limoux Emotion Rose are wonderful modern styled vintage sparkling wines.
Other recommended producers, whose wines you might find in our fair city, are: Domaine Delmas, Gerard Bertrand, Michele Capdepon and Jean-Loius Denois.
Varieties: The primary grape of Limoux sparkling wines is Mauzac but the use of Chardonnay and Chenin Blanc grapes is growing.
Key term: Lees are dead yeast cells and grape particles that settle on the bottom of fermentation tanks or barrels and as a rule the longer a wine is in contact with lees the more intense the flavors.
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