Grape Variety: Mauzac

Colour: White

Mauzac Blanc, is a declining but still thankfully important white grape in South West France, especially in Gaillac and Limoux, where it is the traditional and still principal vine variety. It produces relatively aromatic wines which are usually blended, with Len de l’El and Muscadelle around Gaillac and with Chenin and Chardonnay in Limoux.

Mauzac is especially versatile:  it is resistant to rot and ripens late and may be found in everything from sparkling wines (methode rurale or gaillacoise was being praised by Provençale poet Auger Gaillard long before champagne was a twinkle in Dom Pérignon’s eye) through dry (en vert), to semi sweet and even vin jaune. Mauzac has a subtle but distinctive flavour; it is gently perfumed with a nose of apples, pears and yellow plums and an underlying chalkiness.

The sparkling wines made from Mauzac have a real as well as historic merit. Grapes were traditionally picked well into autumn so that musts fermented slowly and gently in the cool Limoux winters, ready to referment in bottle in the spring. Today Mauzac tends to be picked much earlier, preserving its naturally high acidity but sacrificing much of its particular flavour reminiscent of the skin of shrivelled apples, before being subjected to the usual sparkling wine-making techniques. Some gently sparkling Gaillacs are still made by the traditional methode gaillacoise, however, just as a small portion of Limoux’s Blanquette is made by the methode ancestrale.

Robert Plageoles believes in rediscovering what has been lost. Not for him the slavish adherence to global varietals; he has grubbed up his plantings of Sauvignon and concentrated instead on the native Mauzac, in which he has found the potential for a whole range of styles. Mauzac, when dry (or sec tendre to be precise) can produce a fascinating soft style redolent of pears, white cherries and angelica; it is also responsible for sparkling wines and an array of sweeties ranging from the off dry (Roux) to the unique piercingly dry sherry-like Vin de Voile. This arcane wine is made from the first pressing, which is fermented in old oak and returned to the same barrel where it remains for a further seven years, losing about 20% of volume. After a year the must develops a thin veil (voile) of mould which protects it from the air. The flavour is delicate, reminiscent of salt-dry amontillado, with the acidity to age half a century.

His sparkling wine is made Mauzac Rose and fermentation is methode gaillacoise (also known as methode rurale). These This technique involves a single fermentation, without any additional sugar being introduced. The fermentation is stopped by a series of rackings and the wine is bottled before all of the sugar is converted into alcohol. The residual sweetness, therefore, comes entirely from the grapes. After several months, the residual natural sugar starts to re-ferment and this produces the sparkle or bubbles. The wine can be brut or demi-sec.  (This is brut – dry).

This process requires great skill to achieve and is more difficult than the methode champenoise, which can involve the addition of extra sugar to produce the bubbles. The Gaillac process produces a wine of great originality. The wine is kept on the lees and is not filtered. This delicious sparkler has a fine and delicate effervescence, an attractive nose of white flower (acacia), pollen, white pear and apples. Crisp attack on the palate, yet filling out to become supple and fine with floral notes.

His Mauzac en vert is deliciously understated with those familiar bruised orchard fruit aromas and flavours. The Mauzac Roux is responsible for two styles, a Chenin-esque moelleux-style with notes of baked quince, pear william and honey, whilst the esoteric Vin de Voile, aged for seven years under a veil of yeast, is intensely dry, nutty and yeasty with fabulous acidity.

Mauzac Noir is as rare as telephone conversation between a Dodo and a Great Auk. The Plageoles version is very pretty, quite pale and floral, suggestive of dried rose, and gentle, pleasing red fruit flavours topped off with almond and white pepper. This would be delightful chilled with a plate of cheese.

The drier versions of Mauzac are normally consumed with river fish such as trout or zander, the sweeter ones pare well with Roquefort. As for the Vin de Voile it’s nuts – some cheese and wet walnuts to be precise.