Archive for the ‘Sud-Ouest’ Category
Fun Fact #7: White wine from Madiran is designated AOC Pacherenc du Vic-Bilh
Sweeter style from Domaine Capmartin (a personal favorite)
Madiran is a village in the Southwest region of France. It is best known for its red wines (especially those made from the Tannat grape), which are designated AOC Madiran.
Yet, the same land also produces white wines that are usually blends made from the Gascon varieties Petit Corbu, Petit Manseng, Gros Manseng, Arrufiac and the prominent Bordeaux variety, Sauvignon Blanc (though no more than 10% can come from Sauvignon).
Technically, Pacherenc du Vic-Bilh is divided into two appellations:
- AOC Pacherenc du Vic-Bilh for semi-sweet and sweet wines
- AOC Pacherenc du Vic-Bilh Sec for dry white wines (containing no more than 3 g/L of residual sugar)
If you’re into linguistics, then you can dissect this AOC even further: Pacherenc means “stakes in a row” (from the Gascon dialect Béarnese) and Vic-Bilh means “old country” (from the Occitan language spoken in Southern France)
In other words, this wine hails from the AOC “stakes in a row from the old country”.
Source: Denise Lam, Co-Owner of Bon Wine Limited
Cork’d: France’s Unknown Little Darling… Pécharmant
Here’s a little something for the wine geeks: AOC Pécharmant. I guess I’ve been living under a rock since arriving in Bordeaux because just last night was the first time I’ve encountered a wine from what Wikipedia esteems as “the best known of the Dordogne wine regions” (Dordogne incidentally is the region just east of Bordeaux—its wines fall under the Southwest France category).
I was dining with a good friend who, more or less, plopped a Pécharmant on the table in front of me after our prior source of wine had depleted. [Read more]
