For Hillary, it was mountains. For Armstrong, it was the moon. For Cousteau, it was the deep blue sea. For Don Day, it was the very first sparkling wine ever produced. Well at least one day last month it was.
Now you may have heard that the world’s very first sparkler was Champagne. Discovered accidentally by a monk called Dom Perignon. But I don’t believe that. And I’ll tell you why.
Dom Perignon was born in 1635. A century before that, in the town of Limoux in the southwest of France, there are records of wine with bubbles being bottled and corked in the abbey of Saint-Hilaire. Now Dom Perignon may have stopped in Saint-Hilaire on his way from Spain. But when he arrived in Champagne, his job was actually to find a way to create still wines in bottles that wouldn’t suffer from the minor explosions that could result in more than half of the wine being lost.
1531 is the exact date given to the first sparkling wine, as that is the year of the first written record of it by the Benedectine monks of Saint-Hilaire. For the first time they created wine in glass flasks rather than wood barrels and stoppered them with corks from the local oak forest. They called it Blanquette which in the local dialect means little white. Today it is still called Blanquette de Limoux. Yesterday we opened a couple of bottles.
The occasion was a wine pairing dinner, with Don Day’s Wife preparing the food, and Rosario Arvizu and Alina Morales of Queretaro’s Wine Stop matching each course with wine. Rosario asked me if I’d rather start the evening with a cider from Normandy or the Blanquette de Limoux. I reminded her that Don Day’s Wife walks around singing songs with lyrics like “A day without sparkling wine is like a day without sunshine.” The Blanquette was on.
There are actually three sparkling wines that come from Limoux. The first, Blanquette Methode Ancestrale, is a sweet, low alcohol wine best consumed by great aunts who only drink at weddings and wakes. The second, Cremant de Limoux is a recent creation that is made primarily from Chardonnay and Chenin Blanc that the locals mistakenly thought would allow them to compete with the bubbles from other regions of France. The third, is the classic, the Blanquette de Limoux, the one that Rosario opened last night. The one produced by Sieur d’Arques in 2010 with the date 1531 also on the label to remind us of when it was first created.
The wine was paired with what one of our guests, fellow food blogger Susan York (check her out at cupcakesandcrablegs.com but not until you’ve finished reading this), said was, “Finally, in my life, a reason to eat something green.” The salad combined frisee and romaine lettuce, verdolaga, arugula, lardons, goat cheese, candied pecans, pomegranate and a walnut oil vinaigrette.
The dominant flavor of the Blanquette de Limoux was apple along with hints of fresh cut grass or hay which both complimented and contrasted with the salad. There are some similarities to Sauvignon Blanc both in the nose and taste but the grape variety is something completely different. It is called Mauzac and it must make up at least 90% of the wine according to AOC regulations, with the remainder being Chardonnay or Chenin Blanc or a little of both.
Now it is generally considered that the very best sparkling wines have the most and the smallest bubbles though I’ve never quite understood why (a 52 in Grade 11 Chemistry might be a partial explanation). Rosario explained that, “The tiny bubbles pick up flavor and aroma as they rise to the top. Then, when they explode on the surface, there is more of a refreshing taste.”
I definitely agreed with that. The Blanquette de Limoux had a natural carbonation that would encourage an Hawaiian lounge singer to break out in song. I was refreshed and it did taste very, very good. But was it better than Champagne?
It had that same creamy texture, that same pucker-producing dryness, that same clean, tingly sensation in the roof of the mouth. It was like perhaps Kilimanjaro was to Sir Edmund. Not quite as tall but definitely still worth climbing.
There is one very good reason to choose Blanquette de Limoux over Champagne. The cheapest vintage Champagne that I know of locally is about $2700 pesos. The Wine Stop currently has the 2010 Brut Sieur d’Arques Blanquette de Limoux priced at $500 pesos.
Yes, still a major splurge by my (and probably your) standards but still less than you’d pay for the least expensive wine in some San Miguel restaurants.
So here’s to the golden moon
And here’s to the silver sea
And mostly here’s a toast
To you and me
When the tiny bubbles
In the wine
They make me feel happy
Make me feel fine.
Let me end this, quickly, before I consider including a video of my Don Ho impression.
If you are interested in purchasing Blanquette de Limoux directly, you can email Rosario Arvizu of The Wine Stop at rosario.tws@hotmail.com. There’s a minimum purchase of six bottles.
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