2007 Petit Manseng Doux, Cuvée Comte Philippe, Cabidos
(6x50cl)
| Product Code: | 58022607 |
| Description: | 2007 Petit Manseng Doux, Cuvée Comte Philippe, Cabidos |
| Case Size: | 6x50cl |
| Producer: | Château de Cabidos |
| Region: | South West France |
| Country: | France |
| Alc. By Vol.: | 11.5 |
Grape Varieties
| 100% | Petit Manseng |
Food Matching Note:
This wine is fruit driven, with an added complexity from lees ageing in barrel. This makes it fabulous with any dessert with fruit and/or cream: fruit salad, lemon cheesecake, bread and butter pudding with panettone, crème anglaise.
Tasting Note:
Polished gold in the glass and with notes of mango and pineapple on the nose. In the mouth there is an intense fruity sweetness, but it is never cloying thanks to a refreshing level of acidity. Some oaky spice, and brioche complexity, but no noble rot. A real and distinctive alternative to the great sweet wines of the world - brighter than Recioto, purer than Sauternes and Tokaji, and with riper fruit characteristics than anything from the Loire or points north.
Vinification Note:
The Château specialises in Petit Manseng, which is a local variety now gaining international recognition for its open bunches, thick skins, low yields and intense flavours especially if left to dry on the vine.
The soils are mainly gravel on clay. Plantings are halfway up the hillside with optimal south south west exposure. Vine density varies from 5,500 to 9,000 plants per hectare and training is single Guyot. Fertiliser is not used and the estate practises "lutte raisonée".
The Petit Manseng harvest for the sweet wine usually takes place between 20th November and 15th December. Late autumns allow “passerillage” to take place (surmature grapes left to shrivel on the vine). Noble rot is not permitted to develop.
The winery has been built recently and combines the requirements of modern winemaking with aesthetics and the strictures of the French listed building authorities. The grapes are pressed and cold-settled in stainless steel, after which the must is racked into Tronçais oak barriques for fermentation. Twelve to fifteen months of ageing on the lees follow, endowing the wines with immense body and fruity complexity.