Puig Muscat Sec IGP d'Oc 2009   

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About

Muscat has been grown for centuries here to produce sweet wine but is now increasingly used to make dry wines.  It's quite unusual because the aromas are sweet but the wine is bone dry.  Drunk well chilled, it's a brilliant and essential summer wine, which is excellent with salads.

Tasting notes

The 2009 is again more floral and savoury but still has the intense sweet exotic, citrus, lychee and Muscat fruit on the nose with bone dry, crisp acidity on the palate that make this unique wine so attractive.

Vintage Notes

2009 was yet again a dry year in the Roussillon so the wines are as concentrated as always.  The winter was cold and with almost no rainfall.  The summer was hot but, as in the Rhone, the nights were particularly cool and this has given a cool and fresh character to all the wines.  Georges harvested a bit earlier than usual to get even more freshness in the wine.

Grapes

100% Muscat a Petit Grain

Vine age

25 years old

Vineyards

On limestone clay with stony topsoil and schist subsoil, at 150-200m altitude, on gentle slopes facing north and south, near the village of Passa and the lieu-dit Sant Lluc, in the Aspres region of the Roussillon; these vineyards, in particular the limestone and the schist subsoil, give minerality and freshness despite the hot, dry Mediterranean climate

Yield

30 hl/ha

Harvest

Hand harvested on 25 August

Winemaking

Georges' winemaking is very natural and minimal; this is mainly out of necessity but minimal interference also allows the quality of his soils and old vines show through: the grapes were pressed direct, roughly settled at 6ºC, fermented in concrete tanks at up to 16ºC for 3 weeks, using only wild yeasts.

Maturation

Matured in fibreglass tanks for 6 months

Bottling

Bottled unfined with a very light filtration; in March 2010; only 3,600 bottles (300 cases) were produced