Weird Blend Wednesday - Araignan Blanc, Riveirenc Gris, Riveirenc Blanc & Grenache Gris, Cotes du Brian, France

Araignan Blanc grapes
(aka Picardan)

It has been several months since I last did a Weird Blend Wednesday post, which is entirely too long, so today I'd like to dust the old feature off and talk a bit about a really interesting white wine I tried a few months ago from the Cotes du Brian region of the Languedoc in southern France.  Back in August of last year, I wrote about a red wine from Clos Centeilles which was made from Picpoul Noir, Riveirenc Noir, Morastel Noir à Jus Blanc and Œillade grapes, all of which are pretty rare and very unusual.  Clos Centeilles also makes a white wine made from a handful of local heirloom varieties, and today I'd like to take a look at some of those grapes and the wine that is made from them.
The Clos Centeilles "C" blanc is made from 35% Araignan Blanc, 30% Riveirenc Blanc, 30% Riveirenc Gris and 5% Grenache Gris*.  Since we've already covered Grenache Gris, I'll mainly be focusing on the other three grapes that make up 95% of this particular wine.

Riveirenc Blanc

Araignan Blanc (pictured above) is perhaps the most well known of the bunch, but most people know it as Picardan, and it is one of the 18 approved varieties in the Chateauneuf-du-Pape AOC of the southern Rhone Valley.  It is a very old grape variety and the first mention of it in print can be traced back to 1544 AD.  It shares some synonyms with Bourboulenc and Clairette, though it doesn't appear that it is related to either of those grapes.  The name Picardan is thought to come from a combination of the French words piquer (to sting, as in Picpoul de Pinet) and ardent (burning) because of its high acid content.  The grape's primary synonym of Araignan was first mentioned in print in 1715, and is thought to come from the word araignée, or spider, because of the small hairs on the underside of the leaves which resemble spider's silk.  There are currently only about 1.2 acres (less than a hectare) of Picardan in all of France and though a little bit finds its way into some Chateauneuf-du-Pape blends (like Chateau Beaucastel), chances are pretty good that this particular bottling has the highest percentage of Picardan of any wine in the world.

Riveirenc Gris

Riveirenc Blanc and Gris are color mutations of Riveirenc Noir, which we took a brief look at in my post on the red wine from Clos Centeilles.  This group of grapes is more commonly known as Rivairenc or Aspiran, though very little acreage is devoted to any of the three varieties in France or elsewhere.  The Noir is the most common of the three and it is thought that the grape may be referenced as early as the 15th Century under the name Esperan, but it is difficult to say for certain.  The French registry of grape varieties spells the name of the grape Rivairenc and this is how it is listed in Wine Grapes, but the producer uses the Riveirenc spelling so that's what I've used as well.  The name Rivairenc is thought to come from from the word ribairenc, which in the Occitan dialect means "riparian," or having to do with river banks, possibly because the vines were discovered on a river bank or because they grow particularly well there.  Vouillamoz reports in Wine Grapes that his personal research indicates that there may be a parent/offspring relationship between Rivairenc and Cinsaut, but more markers need to be tested and since the third member of the family has not yet been identified, it is impossible to say what the precise nature of the relationship between the two grapes is.  I cannot find any planting statistics for Rivairenc Blanc or Gris, so there is also a really good chance that the 30% of each in this particular wine is the highest proportion you're likely to find anywhere.

I picked up the 2009* Close Centeilles "C" Blanc from my friends at Curtis Liquors for around $20.  This wine is a vin de pays from the Cotes du Brian, which I believe is in the area around Minervois in the Languedoc.  In the glass the wine was a fairly deep lemon gold color.  The nose was fairly intense with aromas of green apple, apple cider, Meyer lemon, pastry dough, pineapple and melon.  On the palate the wine was on the fuller side of medium with medium acidity.  There were broad, creamy flavors of pear, red apple, Meyer lemon creme and a touch of apple cider.  This wine is fermented on its lees before being drawn off the heavier lees into a neutral container.  It is stirred weekly for several months before being bottled for release and this stirring and lees contact definitely gives it a rich, creamy mouth-feel, though it does sharpen up a bit as it approaches room temperature.  Rosemary George reviewed this wine on her website in 2010 and remarked that it is "not a wine to age," and I agree with her assessment, having tasted the wine about a year and a half after she did.  It was an enjoyable wine, but I thought it was probably more interesting than good and much preferred the red from this estate.  It is a rare opportunity to try grapes that you may otherwise never taste, though, and is good enough that I wouldn't consider it a mere curiosity.

*These figures are for the 2007 vintage.  The winery website does not offer any more up-to-date information than this.

Weird Blend Wednesday - Piquepoul Noir, Riveirenc Noir, Morastel Noir a Jus Blanc& Oeillade Noir - Languedoc, France

Piquepoul Noir Grapes

We've taken some looks at some fairly unusual blends here on Weird Blend Wednesday, but we've never tackled anything quite like today's wine.  All four of the grapes in this particular bottle are not just unusual, but extremely rare to boot.  I've done the best that I can trying to tease out exactly what's in this wine, but given the extraordinary scarcity of these grapes, it's hard to say how successful my effort has been.

Clos Centeilles was founded by husband and wife team Daniel and Patrica Boyer-Domergue in the late 1980's in the Minervois region of southern France.  In the mid 1990's, the duo planted a small vineyard with the aim of preserving some of the ancient native varieties that had been almost completely wiped out by phylloxera about a hundred years before.  They make both a white wine and red wine from these extraordinarily rare grapes and we'll eventually take a look at their white, but today I'd like to take a look at their red wine and the four grapes that are used in its creation.

The overwhelming majority of the blend for this wine (78%) is from a grape called Piquepoul (or Picpoul) Noir.  This is the dark berried form of the Picpoul grape used in the production of Picpoul de Pinet, and it is much more difficult to find than its light skinned twin (which is planted on about 2,500 acres of land throughout France).  Both Picpoul Noir and Picpoul Blanc are permitted varieties in Chateaneuf-du-Pape, but together they account for only about 0.15% of the total plantings there.  Picpoul Noir is also permitted in the Coteaux du Languedoc appellation, but is neither widely grown nor utilized there.   Wines made from the Picpoul Noir grape are richly perfumed but lightly colored so the grape tends to be used as a blending grape when it is used at all.  This particular wine is probably about as close as you can come to a varietal Picpoul Noir.

Riveirenc Noir makes up the second largest part of this wine at 15% of the blend, and I can find absolutely no online information about this grape outside of descriptions of this particular wine.  The VIVC database has no listings for a grape called Riveirenc, though there is a listing for a grape called Riveyrenc, which is either officially known as Aspiran Noir (according to the VIVC) or Rivairenc (according to the OCW, though the entry is given under Aspiran).  Riveirenc is not listed as an accepted synonym for Aspiran Noir in the VIVC, so it is unclear whether it is the same grape or not, but it seems likely given that Aspiran is still an accepted variety in the Minervois, where this particular wine is made.  There were only about 7 hectares of Aspiran Noir in France as of 1988, though at one time it accounted for almost a quarter of the plantings in the Hérault region of the Languedoc.  Phylloxera claimed many of the vines in the late 19th Century, and then a severe frost in 1956 claimed most of the rest.  It's not a particularly productive vine, so most growers elected to plant other varieties when their vines were stricken.

Morastel Noir à Jus Blanc is the third largest component of this particular wine, though it makes up only 5% of the blend.  Morastel is, generally speaking, a synonym for Mourvedre, but given that this estate has other vines that they identify as Mourvedre, it's unclear just what this variety might be.  In France, Morastel (sometimes also spelled Morrastel) refers to the Graciano grape, which was once widely planted in the Languedoc.  The "jus blanc" part of the name hints that it may be related to a teinturier variety (a grape with red flesh and thus red juice), as the "jus blanc," or "white juice" description is often used to differentiate white pulped clones from red pulped ones.  In this report on the Paris Exhibition of 1878, the author notes a few "red juice" varieties of grape, three of which have the word "Morastel" in them.  All three of these Morastel grapes were created by Henri Bouschet by crossing Morastel (presumably Graciano in this context), and Petit-Bouschet.  The OCW informs us that Morrastel-Bouschet (which I'm assuming was one of these crossings) eventually came to completely replace plantings of Morrastel/Graciano in southern France, so it is possible that one of these teinturier Morastel crossings mutated at some point into a non-teinturier vine, and that his mutation is now known as Morastel Noir à Jus Blanc.  It is also possible that  Morastel Noir à Jus Blanc was just the local name given to Graciano to differentiate it from the Morastel-Bouschet teinturier varieties after they came to dominate the landscape.  It's difficult to say for sure either way.

Œillade Noir Grapes     

Œillade makes up only 2% of the blend for this wine, and it has the same kind of naming issue as Morastel Noir à Jus Blanc.  Œillade is typically used as a synonym for Cinsaut, but, again, Clos Centeilles grows a lot of Cinsaut and bottles other wines under that particular name, so it doesn't seem likely that what they're calling Œillade is merely Cinsaut.  The VIVC does have a listing for an Oeillade Noire, which seems to be related to another grape called Araignan, which Clos Centeilles uses for the white version of this particular wine, so it's probably a safe bet that that's what we're dealing with here.  Oeillade Noire can sometimes resemble Cinsaut, which is probably where the confusion about the synonyms comes from, though wines from it are lighter in color and, according to some sources, slightly inferior in quality, which probably goes a long way towards explaining why there isn't that much of it around anymore.

I was able to get my hands on a bottle of the 2006 Clos Centeilles C de Ceinteilles Rouge from my friends at the Spirited Gourmet for about $18 (I believe the wine is also available in both Rouge and Blanc from Curtis Liquors as well).  In the glass this wine was a fairly light purple ruby color.  The nose was moderately intense with black cherry, blackberry, charcoal, smoke and black pepper aromas.  On the palate the wine was on the fuller side of medium with medium acidity and medium tannins.  There were flavors of red cherry and crushed red berries, smoke, and black pepper with a distinctively savory, meaty kind of character to it.  It wasn't incredibly complex, but it was very nice and represents a good bargain at under $20.  It's probably the only chance that most people will have to taste a wine made from these particular grape varieties and is worth the cost of the bottle for that fact alone.  Those of you who are a few grapes short on your Wine Century Club applications should track a bottle of this down as it's a sure-fire way to add four more grapes to your tasting resume.

Terret (Gris or Blanc) - Vin de Pays d'Oc (Languedoc), France

Weird Blend Wednesday is only a few weeks old but I am already in a position where I need to put it off for a week or two.  The post I was planning to write actually will rely on two other posts that I haven't written yet so rather than jump the gun, I'm calling an audible and will be talking about an unusual, inexpensive little wine that I found while I was visiting my mother in South Carolina over the Christmas holidays.

While scouring the shelves in the local wine shop, I found this bottle that said it was made from the Terret grape.  Sounds simple enough, but things are never quite that easy around here.  Terret is actually a small family grapes, much like the Pinot family, with (at least) three members.  The Terret family has been around southern France for a long time and is marked by the frequency and ease with which it mutates.  The three main members of the family are differentiated by the color of the skin of the berries, but some authorities have reported that the grape is so genetically unstable, there are some vines that have all three berry colors within the same cluster.

There is the red-skinned Terret Noir, which is perhaps best known as one of the official Chateauneuf-du-Pape grapes.  In the early 19th Century it was very widely planted in southern France, but by 2007 total plantings throughout the country stood at under 200 hectares total.  There is also Terret Gris which, as you might expect, is the pink-skinned version of the grape.  Terret Gris is grown primarily in the Languedoc region of France and is officially allowed in the Corbières, Minervois and Coteaux du Languedoc AOCs.  By the numbers, Terret Gris is the most commonly planted member of the family, covering about 2,500 hectares, but those numbers (and most official registers and statistics), for whatever reason, lump both Terret Gris and Terret Blanc together.  Terret Blanc is the most unusual of the three and most sources indicate that it is a white-skinned mutation, meaning it is probably the newest member of the Terret family, though it isn't clear whether it mutated from the Noir or the Gris version.  The heyday for the light-berried members of the Terret family was the 1980's when, taken together, Terret Gris and Terret Blanc were the ninth most planted grape in France, covering almost 5,000 hectares of land.

We would all like to believe that quality revolutions are inherently good things, but they can leave some innocent bystanders in their wake.  The quality revolution going on now in the Languedoc has been very good for many of the winemakers and for many consumers as wines from this region are increasingly sought after both for their high quality and their relatively affordable prices.  This revolution started to happen when producers in the Languedoc began to pull up high-volume, low-quality vines and replace them with the international varieties that are well known to virtually all wine consumers.  Vines like Terret, which are capable of making very interesting wines, are now also being pulled up and replaced with the recognizable international varieties to meet the new demand for wines from this region.  The problem with Terret isn't that it makes bad wines.  No, the problem with Terret is that it is called Terret and, like it not, most consumers are only interested in buying wines made from grapes that they have heard of.  Cabernet Sauvignon and Chardonnay based wines will almost always outsell wines made from grapes like Terret, but, hopefully, there will also be some producers who are dedicated to preserving these unusual little vinous outposts for the more adventurous among us as well.

I was able to find a bottle of the 2010 Marc Roman Terret for the paltry sum of $7.  As this post from another blog tells us, this wine was bottled by the Cellier Jean d’Alibert, a cooperative located in the Minervois region of the Languedoc.  There is no indication given as to whether the wine itself is made from Terret Gris or Terret Blanc, though if I were a gambling man, I'd put money on Terret Gris.  Given the large amount of space dedicated to his name on the label for this wine, you might be inclined to wonder just who Marc Roman is.  Frankly, I have no idea.  The importer's website says: "Marc Roman is the 'nickname' of our winemaker who lives among the vineyards of Southern France near Montpellier. 'Roman' hails to the Roman history of the vineyards in this part of France, still evident today in the many frescoes and ruins that can be found in the vineyards."  The Marc Roman "winery" or whatever it is only makes two wines: this white Terret and a red made from Malbec grapes.

In the glass, this wine was a pale silvery gold color.  The nose was nicely aromatic with ripe pear and melon fruits.  It was pretty one-dimensional with the pear stealing the show, but that's somewhat understandable at this price point.  On the palate the wine was on the lighter side of medium with medium acidity.  There were flavors of ripe pear, ripe apple, green melon and a touch of lemony citrus.  In my notebook I wrote "pears, pears & more pears," which lines up pretty well with my memory of the wine as well.  It represents a tremendous value at only $7 a bottle and will probably appeal most to fans of Pinot Grigio or other light, refreshing wines with a lot of up-front fruits.

Picpoul de Pinet - Coteaux du Languedoc, France

I buy a lot of wine, and like any wine lover, I have my favorite shops. There are some places that I go to for all my Bordeaux needs, some places I go for my value wine needs and still other places I go for my fringe wine kicks. The Gypsy Kitchen in Quincy Center, MA, is definitely one of my favorites for value wines and off-the-beaten path adventures. Lisa Lamme's selection is always interesting and she's very knowledgeable about every bottle on her shelves. In addition to her nice wine selection, she also has a great variety of imported cheeses and cured meats. She's a hot sauce aficionado who founded the first store devoted to hot sauce in the country. She even has a cookbook coming out which you can pre-order on amazon.com or through her virtual storefront. On my last visit to her shop, I loaded up on some fringe wines, and will be writing here about a Picpoul de Pinet I picked up for $10.

Picpoul Blanc is a little known grape grown in the Rhone valley (where it is one of the 13 grapes allowed in the Cheateauneuf-du-Pape blend) and the Languedoc region of France primarily, though there are small plantings in other parts of the world. This particular bottling is from the Languedoc, a massive wine region in the south of France. The Languedoc produces more wine than any other region on earth and is responsible for 1/3 of the French output. For years, most of the production coming out of this region was ordinary, nondescript juice destined for bulk wine consumption, but recently there has been a stronger focus on quality production from many producers in the area. Within the Languedoc, there are several sub-appellations, of which Picpoul de Pinet is one. Wines from this region must be made from 100% Picpoul Blanc grapes sourced from one of six local communes. The name "picpoul" literally means "lip stinger."

The producer of my bottling was La Chapelle de la Bastide and the vintage was 2009. In the glass, the wine had a pale straw color. The nose was a bit reserved with some melon and flower components and a whiff of creamy pear. On the palate, my first written impression was "lean and stony." The wine had a light body and medium to medium plus acidity, which surprised me given the etymology of the grape's name. There was a lot of wet stone minerality as well as some light lemon flavors. It reminded me of being in a restaurant where they keep lemon slices in the water pitchers. You can definitely pick up some lemon flavor, but it's faint and very far in the background.

I should note that the tasting notes above were written when I first removed the wine from the refrigerator. I always try, with white wines, to taste them at several different temperatures, as over-chilling them can blunt many of their most interesting characteristics. I thought this wine really hit its stride with a medium-chill on it, when it had been sitting on the counter for about half an hour. The lemon flavors definitely moved closer to the front with a little time on the counter. Lemon peel dominated the nose and beginning of the attack, fading into those nice stony minerals as the wine finished. As the wine approached room temperature, the lemon flavors faded again and there were more round melon and floral qualities to the nose and palate. The wine behaved like a Sauvignon Blanc mixed with Chenin Blanc with a little Muscadet and Riesling thrown in for good measure. It's an absolute slam-dunk with shellfish and light seafood and could probably stand up to an acidic chicken dish like a piccata. It's light and refreshing enough to be served as an apertif as well. All in all, it's a very nice, crisp offering that I wish I'd uncorked in July rather than November.

Please see this post for a more recent tasting note from another Picpoul-based wine.