Sweet luxury is a noble brew

Nov 27 2009 by Katharine Everitt, The Journal

THERE are many fine dry white and red wines made near Bergerac on the gentle slopes of the Dordogne Valley, but the greatest wines of this lovely region are sweet. The best known, Monbazillac, is a worthy rival today to Sauternes and Barsac, made less than an hour’s drive away.

Despite a long and proud history, Monbazillac had fallen upon hard times. When I first got to know the region a little over 25 years ago, much of it was an insipid, cloying brew, even though it wasn’t always terribly sweet. Instead of smelling of fresh fruit, it had the delicate bouquet of plasticine.

I well remember Nick Ryman, who helped kickstart a revolution in wine- making practices in Bergerac, describing to me in ripely unrepeatable and deeply undiplomatic terms the disastrously poor Monbazillac made by some of his neighbours.

But a few careful producers showed that far greater wines were possible and then, with a trio of fine vintages in 1988, 89 and 90, others stepped up to the plate with a succession of genuinely concentrated, elegantly fruity wines, which showed something of Monbazillac’s true potential.

One of the main factors in this sudden improvement was a realisation that good Monbazillac could not be made by picking grapes all in one go, often before they were as sweet as they might be, and trying to make up for the lack of grape sweetness by then adding copious quantities of sugar to the juice.

Monbazillac worthy of the name can’t be made on the cheap.

The situation of its best vineyards, unusually, on a north-facing slope, also explains why it should always be special. In the autumn, when the grapes are already ripe, morning mists encourage the development of a fungus, botrytis cinerea, or ‘noble rot’, which further concentrates the sugars and even lifts the grape acidity a little.

The afternoon sun then burns off the mists and gorges the grapes with more sugar. As the onset of the fungus is normally uneven, teams of pickers have to be prepared to make several passes through the vines over a period of, perhaps, a week or two to select only the nobly rotten grapes. This, along with tiny yields, makes great Monbazillac a luxury product.

If the winemaker then chooses to ferment and age the intensely sweet juice in new oak barrels, which helps the wine gain even more complexity, costs rise even more.