Had a little gathering of friends at the Victorian last night! When a few of the first ladies walked through the door, I popped open a bottle I’ve been excited to try. And it exploded all over me, but whatever. Don’t hate the bubble game, hate the shuffle. Or something.
OK, the wine. It’s Eric Texier ‘s 2011 Rouletabulle Petillant Naturel, made primarily from old vine Chasselas in the Rhone. Say what? Chasselas is a grape you usually find in Switzerland. Interesting!
Here’s a quote from Eric I pulled from the David Bowler Wine site:
“Confronted with fantastic old vines of white and pink Chasselas growing on sandstone in Flaviac (near Saint- Julien en Saint-Alban), we had one question: what to do with them? Before thinking about uprooting or overgrafting them, we wanted to vinify the grapes. The climate is certainly too southern to make a dry wine (the location is definitely not the shores of Geneva lake), so why not a pétillant naturel? We made our first attempt in 2011, and added 20% of Muscat de Hambourg (red Muscat table grape) from a nearby plot. On the advice of good friends from Die, we kept residual sugar at 15 to 20g/l with about 10 degrees of alcohol. All explained that fermentation would stop when pressure would get to a few bars. But, surprise, pressure continued to climb and would not stop. So we had to disgorge and affix the closure without adding any SO2. These bubbles are astonishing with their aromatic complexity, and the wine is suited for conversations, for poolside, for afternoon snacks, and intense heat, it is mischievous for sure. Rouletabulle was born and named after the reporter Rouletabille in Gaston Leroux’s books, for its irrepressible elan. 3200 bottles produced.”
Well, we weren’t poolside in intense heat, but we definitely had snacks and got a little mischievous. This was far too easy to drink, as in the bottle was probably finished in about 5 minutes. So delicious! Like apple cidre meets lemon candy. It’s 9 am and I want another glass.
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