Clairette du Languedoc-Roussillon/languedoc">Languedoc is an appellation from the Languedoc-Roussillon region in southern France. It covers white wines produced exclusively from the Clairette grape. Stylistically, the wines produced under the appellation show remarkable variation, making it difficult to describe the overall style. They range from light, fresh and lively to Soft, Rich, reddish-brown Rancio.
Those labelled "rancio" are aged for three years before being released to the market. In recent years, the production of Sweet wines has exceeded that of Dry wines. The vineyards growing the grapes for this appellation cover just under 100 hectares (250 acres). These are unevenly distributed among the 11 parishes that are authorized to produce these wines.
The focus of the symposium, unsurprisingly, was on the challenges posed by climate change. As if to illustrate the immediacy of the threat, the symposium took place during a heatwave, with temperatures of over 40°C in Bordeaux and extreme weather events recorded across the coountry: parts of southwest France saw violent storms and winds of 112kph on the evening of 20 June, while vineyards across the Médoc and St-Emilion were damaged by hailstones ‘the size of golfballs’. As Olivier Bernard of D ...
The largest-ever year for entries, an incredible 18,244 wines were judged at the 2022 Decanter World Wine Awards – with just 163 wines awarded a Platinum medal. ‘Winning a Platinum medal is something really exceptional’ said Decanter World Wine Awards Co-Chair Sarah Jane Evans MW. ‘Platinum is like the stratospheric level’ she commented, ‘so it’s really saying to the winemaker: this is a great wine.’ Making up just 0.87% of the total wines tasted at the 2022 c ...
The Roussillon is home to a range of wine styles, at varying price points. Sweet fortified wines (vin doux naturel) used to dominate production, with still dry wines (vin sec) in the minority. In the last 30 years, however, this has completely changed, and vin sec now makes up the majority (80%) of the Roussillon’s output. The recent Wines of Roussillon tasting, held in London, not only highlighted many good quality dry wines being produced, but also cemented the idea that Roussillon whites are ...
