Winemaker Notes
The wine shows brilliant soft-golden and caramel tones. The nose reveals notes of green apple and candied lemon, while the palate offers crisp acidity and balanced effervescence. It pairs beautifully with firm aged cheese, hearty crostini, and caviar.
Professional Ratings
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Tasting Panel
This blend of 70% Chardonnay, 20% Chenin, and 10% Mauzac from 500-year-old producer Maison Antech hails from vines that are as old as 80 years and represent a range of Limoux terroir. A perfume of vanilla custard and tangerine is accompanied by the aroma of bread dough, and the bubbles are vivacious, revealing notes of lemon drop and white flowers.
A term typically reserved for Champagne and Sparkling Wines, non-vintage or simply “NV” on a label indicates a blend of finished wines from different vintages (years of harvest). To make non-vintage Champagne, typically the current year’s harvest (in other words, the current vintage) forms the base of the blend. Finished wines from previous years, called “vins de reserve” are blended in at approximately 10-50% of the total volume in order to achieve the flavor, complexity, body and acidity for the desired house style. A tiny proportion of Champagnes are made from a single vintage.
There are also some very large production still wines that may not claim one particular vintage. This would be at the discretion of the winemaker’s goals for character of the final wine.
While Limoux also produces both white and red wines, it is ultimately recognized as a sparkling wine zone. Blanquette de Limoux is the region’s original sparkler, which is based on Mauzac with small amounts of Chardonnay and/or Chenin Blanc. The more rustic and traditional version, Blanquette Méthode Ancestrale, is an often cloudy and sweeter sparkling wine made exclusively from Mauzac.
In the 1990s, the region created the more modern, Crémant de Limoux, for international markets.