Fortified wines: Sweet endings(1)
I clearly remember the first time I tasted a glass of the French wine Banyuls. It was 20 years ago, and my sister was going to Paris, and asked me if I would like her to bring something back. I said, “How about a bottle of Banyuls? I hear it tastes great with chocolate.”
I had picked up this nugget of info at a Valrhona seminar for pastry chefs, where chef Frédéric Bau claimed Banyuls provided the ideal match for chocolates and chocolate desserts. This came at a time when restaurants were often pouring a glass of Champagne with that fancy chocolate soufflé. Yet the chocolate/Champagne pairing is a non-starter. Champagne is too dry. Even a cup of sweet coffee would be better.
But that Banyuls my sister brought me … wow! The bottle I received was of an aged Banyuls, a fortified wine from the Roussillon region of France, in the southwest of the country on the Mediterranean Sea. Made after a process known as “mutage” (similar to that used in the production of port), the wine’s sweetness is due to the addition of alcohol during fermentation. This halts fermentation while sugar levels are high, preserving the sweetness in the grapes. The wine is then aged in oak barrels for at least 10 months.
The taste of the finished product does resemble port, but with a lower alcohol level (about 16 per cent compared with port’s usual 20), and is lighter and more quaffable.
The wine I received, however, was more brown in colour than the more common ruby, because it was a “rancio” Banyuls, which had been aged in oak casks that allow the wine to oxidize and develop a deepness of flavour. Though most Banyuls offer flavours of baked red fruits, coffee and even stewed prunes, this oxidized Banyuls tasted of caramel and nuts. To say I enjoyed that bottle with a heaped plate of praline chocolates, would be an understatement. It was a revelation. Ecstasy even.
But my Banyuls experience more or less ended with that bottle. It took a good decade before I was eventually offered a glass of Banyuls in a Montreal restaurant with dessert. It wasn’t always the best Banyuls, but I liked it a heck of a lot more than the usual port (or, God forbid, Frangelico). Soon after, a sommelier showed up at my table with a bottle of Maury from a producer by the name of Mas Amiel. I liked the modern label and the complex sweetness of this wine, too, which I soon discovered came from the same region as my beloved Banyuls. I was hooked. But only after visiting their birthplace last September and seeing and tasting just how complex these wines are did I truly fall under their spell.
I was there at the invitation of the Conseil Interprofessionnel des Vins du Roussillon (a promotional agency for the wines of the region), and though the other wine writers with me were seduced by the sexy red wines made with the mourvèdre and “vieilles vignes” carignan that abound in the region, I was focused on the complex sweet wines known as “vins doux naturels.” These often pricey wines are made primarily with red grenache grapes, although grenache gris, grenache blanc and a few other varietals are accepted. I was familiar with the Banyuls and Maury, yet Rivesaltes was an appellation known to me only as Muscat de Rivesaltes, that fruity sweet white wine that I liked to sip as an apéritif. When I arrived in the Roussillon and ordered a glass of Muscat de Rivesaltes at the beginning of dinner in a restaurant called Le Tire-Bouchon in Perpignan, the waiter chuckled and said, “Madame, you drink muscat with dessert.” I had a lot to learn.
My education began at the incredible Domaine Cazes (the largest organic vineyard in the world), where I tasted Rivesaltes that provided the best introduction to this appellation. There are a myriad of styles in Rivesaltes, ranging from the young (2008) and very berry “Grenat,” to the older (1998) nutty and candied-citrus-flavoured “Ambré,” to the even older (1995) and more cocoa-tinged “Tuilé.” Sipping that Tuilé with a delectable coffee ice-cream parfait, I thought: Where have these fabulous wines been all my life?
Just when I was reeling over those Rivesaltes, along came the 1978 Cuvée Aimé Cazes, a wine that all but altered my DNA. Made primarily with white grenache grapes and aged for 22 years in old oak casks, this oxidized Rivesaltes filled my mouth with flavours of roasted figs, marmalade walnuts, nutmeg and cardamom that went on and on. I stood there stunned, thinking how magnificent this would be with foie gras, a coffee mille-feuille, or simply alone sipped alongside someone you love. And as these wines keep well refrigerated once opened, that could be daily.
