South West France Flashcards
History and Trade- South West France
Significant Bordeaux influence on varieties and wine styles. Proximity to Bordeaux limits its trade.
Production of Bordeaux style reds, dry and sweet white with good price to quality ratio.
Major advances in wine tech and enthusiasm of growers.
Large range if wines grown, many local grape varieties as well as international varieties.
Bergerac AC
East to Entre- Deux- Mers, similar climate to Bordeaux with less maritime influence. Red and White wines produced from same varieties grown in Bordeaux.
Monbazillac AC, Saussignac AC and Haut- Montavel AC
Produce great botrytised sweet wines.
Buzet AC
High up the Garonne valley. Predominately red. Local co-op cellar the most important producer.
Galliac AC
Historically important wine region with a diverse range of styles. Crisp dry white blends from Sauvignon, Semillon and local grapes Mauzac and Len de i’el. Sweet wines can be produced from Ondenc as well as Mauzac and Len de i’el. Spicy, structured reds from Duras and Braucol
Cahors AC
Upper valley of the Lot. Tannic and long lasting. Lots of different styles (depends on soil). Most important grape is Auxerrois (Malbec) which needs to account for 70% of the vineyard area. Merlot and Tannat also grown. Aged in oak, deep colour, dark berry fruits. When mature develops cedar and earth.
Madiran AC
Sth of Armagnac. Tannat produces full- bodied brambly red wine. Incorporates two Vin de Pays: Vin de Pays Cotes des Gascogne and Vin de Pays du Gers. Aromatic, crisp whites from Armagnac varieties.
Jurancon AC
Sweet wines from Petit Manning and Gros Manseng. Jurancon Sec AC is for dry wines from the same varieties.
Fronton AC
Nth of Toulouse. Mainly red wines from local variety Negrette, this must make 50-70% of the appellations red. Small amount of white made from Mauzac.
VdP du Comte Tolosan
The VdP that covers the whole South West France. More commonly seen as the departmental VdP du Gers and VdP des Cotes de Gascogne (which serves the Armagnac region). Mainly crisp, fresh, easy drinking whites from Colombard, Gros Manning, Ugni Blanc, Sauvignon Blanc and Chardonnay
Gascony
Proud region in south west france which today comprises armagnac country and such wines as madiran and jurançon. Its name appears on labels of the highly successful igp Côtes de Gascogne. In the Middle Ages it was incorporated into Aquitaine and was therefore, like bordeaux, under English rule for nearly 300 years from the middle of the 12th century.
Bergerac
- Produces mainly red, but also dry and sweet white, and rosé wines in the image of bordeaux to the immediate west of the region (usually cheaper).
- Named after town at centre on the River dordogne, principal appellation of the Dordogne département.
- Lacking distinctions other than touristic (and gastronomic; Périgord is the home of the truffle), has long been in the shadow Bordeaux’s more serious wine reputation,
- Climate: somewhere between maritime and continental, but overripeness is a rare characteristic of Bergerac grapes and wines.
- Soils alluvial silt to clay and, on the higher terraces, limestone.
- Monbazillac on the left bank of the river is making more and more good-quality botrytized wine.
- Montravel on the right bank makes lightish dry and sweet white wines in the west of the region.
- Both appellations created in 1930s just after the creation of the Bergerac appellation. pécharmant won its own red wine appellation in 1946, as did the almost extinct sweet wine appellation of rosette, while the saussignac sweet white wine appellation was created in 1982.
- Many producers choose to sell their wines simply as Bergerac.
- Vines grown are the classic Bordeaux varieties: Cabernets and Merlot for red wines, and Sauvignon, Sémillon, and Muscadelle for whites. Sémillon is still the most planted light-skinned variety, Merlot the most popular grape for the red wines, which constitute the majority of production.
- The most common form of Bergerac is as a still red wine generally very similar to red bordeaux aoc.
- About a quarter of all white wine is sweet, made mainly from Sémillon, and sold as Côtes de Bergerac Mœlleux.
Cahors
- Shrinking wine region in south west france, producing exclusively red wine, dependent on the malbec or Cot grape.
- In the 1980s and 1990s, benefited from considerable inward investment and since then has pinned hopes on Argentina’s success with Malbec.
- The River Lot provided an ideal trade route from the town of Cahors to the markets of northern Europe via the garonne and Bordeaux, and Cahors was making wines noted for their colour and body from at least the early Middle Ages.
- Influenced by the Mediterranean as well as by the Atlantic, and, winters are rather colder than in Bordeaux, the wines tend to be more concentrated.
- In the early 19th century were famed as the ‘black wines of Cahors’. (Such was Cahors’s international renown in the 19th century that imitation ‘Cahors’ was made by at least one of the Russian model wineries in the crimea.) A method of making the wines even blacker had been adopted whereby a portion of the grape juice was boiled to concentrate its colour and fermentable sugars.
- Arrival of the railways also gave the populous north ready access to the cheap and plentiful wines of the languedoc.
- Cahors fell into decline. The establishment of the Caves d’Olt co-operative at Parnac in 1947 marked the modest beginning of a new era during which the proportion of noble grape varieties and the incidence of good winemaking equipment and technology have steadily increased so that by the late 1990s more than 4,000 ha of vines were producing Cahors, awarded full appellation contrôlée status in 1971—although this total had dropped to below 3,400 ha by 2011.
- Vines for Cahors may be planted either on the notably thin topsoil of the arid, limestone plateau, the causses, or on the sand and gravel terraces between the plateau and the river, the coteaux.
- The notorious winter freeze of 1956 had a marked effect on the Cahors vignoble and provided a clean slate at an appropriate moment in the appellation’s evolution.
- The appellation rules stipulate at least 70% Malbec, supplemented by the tannic tannat and/or the supple merlot.
- Cahors is exceptional among the important south west French appellations in that neither Cabernet vine is allowed.
- Maceration times are a genuine variable and can have a considerable effect on wine style, as of course does barrel maturation.
Jurancon
Is a name closely associated with south west france, of a distinguished white wine both dry (Jurançon Sec) and sweet (labelled simply Jurançon), of a relatively important, if undistinguished, dark-berried vine variety, and of an entirely unimportant light-berried vine.
Jurancon- The Wine
- This fashionable, tangy, distinctive white wine has been celebrated and fiercely protected since the Middle Ages, and Jurançon one the earliest appellations contrôlées.
- In the 14th century, the parliament of navarra introduced the concept of a cru by identifying and valuing specific favoured vineyard sites.
- Principal varieties are the indigenous petit manseng and gros manseng, but the dry version may include up to 50% made up of other local varieties petit courbu, courbu, Camaralet de Lasseube, and Lauzet.
- Spring frosts are such a threat that many vines are espalier trained, but the Atlantic influence ensures sufficient rainfall.
- Mixture of limestone, sand, clay, and stones are protected by the Midi d’Ossau mountain.
- Gros Manseng is chiefly responsible for Jurançon Sec, the more common dry but strongly flavoured version of this wine, for which yields of 60 hl/ha (3.4 tons/acre) are allowed.
- Petit Manseng, with its small, thick-skinned berries, is ideal for the production of Jurançon’s real speciality, long-living, relatively inexpensive sweet Jurançon made from grapes partially dried on the vine which in some years may not be harvested until December
- If several tries are made through the vineyard (two are mandatory), the results may be bottled separately. oak is used to increasing effect. These moelleux wines, whose green tinge seems to deepen with age, serve well as aperitifs and with a wide range of foods.