I certainly don’t have much experience with dry Petit Manseng or Gros Manseng, but I’ve been digging around on the web for information and wanted the input of any of the experts here willing to share more details regarding producers, recent vintages, etc.
Up here I always snap up what I can find which is usually quite limited. Will send you a PM…OK? One Calgary store might carry Cauhape, Clos Thou and Jolys.
I tend to grab anything Manseng-wise!
I’ve enjoyed a fair amount of Domaines Bordenave and Nigri.
I agree with the comment that the wines are best after a few years in the bottle.
Drink them in situations when you would otherwise open a Chenin Blanc. I get the impression that vintages usually mirror Bordeaux.
Excuse me, that statement is unclear. I don’t mean “shows as a mirror image”, i.e. reversed. I mean that the Jurancon gets the same macro weather effects, via the jet stream influence.
I’m a big fan of Jurançon. Both the dries and sweeties can be superb, but my choice nearly always falls on dry because I find sweeties so difficult to pair with food. Even if analytically there is very little RS, the dries often give the impression that there is a sweetie trying to get out because of acacia notes in their aromas and fruit veering in the tropical direction. However there is nearly always bracing minerality and lively acidity which prevent even the sweeties from being cloying.
Estates which I can personally recommend are -
Camin Larredya (Jean-Marc Grussaute)
Clos Lapeyre (Jean-Bernard Larrieu) - brilliant dry Vitatge Viehl
Clos Uroulat (Charles Hours) - very good dry Cuvée Marie but needs a little time to integrate oak
Domaine Cauhapé (Ramonteu) - was appellation leader a few years ago but IMO now overtaken by the above, but still good
Château Jolys (Latrille) - perhaps a cut below the others but good dry and good QPR at €7 and better IMO than the comparably priced Cauhapé
I have not tried the Jardins de Babylone and am unlikely to buy one because of the price - c.€50 for the dry. I am always a bit suspicious of famous outsiders like Dagueneau coming into a different appellation to “teach” the locals how to do it. The wine is undoubtedly very good but is it typical? If I see it at a tasting, I will try to find out.
One of the influences of Dagueneau here (bad for consumers but good for producers) is price escalation. The Larredya range is now in the early €20s and Lapeyre and Uroulat in the mid-late teens.
A few years ago Charles Hours at Uroulat was letting his daughter, Marie, have her head with certain cuvées, which were more modern in style and trendily labelled. I don’t know if this still applies but confusingly Cuvée Marie was (and I guess still is) one of his and a sound buy.
Other tit bits of information -
The sweeties never see botrytis (Pierre-Yves Latrille told me that very firmly)
There is no demi-sec (Jean-Marc Grussaute is fighting for it but cannot persuade other growers)
Very nice whites are grown from similar grape cocktails at Pacherenc du Vic-Bilh and Irouléguy.
An excellent post. I’m a huge fan of Jurancon (sec and sweet) as well and I also really like the region even though I found the village of Jurancon itself not very pittoresque (unlike Pau).
At Charles Hours, I usually prefer the Moelleux to the dry Cuvée Marie as I find the Cuvée Marie to be a bit austere and acidic in leaner years (a recently drunk 2005 Cuvée Marie from Magnum was outstanding though, but that was a richer vintage). Larredya is currently my favorite producer and I find the La Part Davan dry Jurancon truly outstanding. It’s true though that it isn’t cheap relative to the price level in the region five years ago. Vitage Vieilh and the generously, but stylishly oaked Mantoulan from Clos Lapeyre are among my favorites, too. I never got really warm with the dry Jurancons from Cauhapé. It’s a very balanced style, but I was always missing that extra something that I find for example at Lapeyre or Larredya.
Two additional producers I would want to recommend are Domaine de Souch and Clos Thou.
Re Jardins de Babylone, I’ve never tried their dry Jurancon, only the sweet Jardins de Babylone (twice). I wasn’t blown away to be honest. For the price, I rather buy one of the very late harvested cuvées from other producers.
Tim,
Dagueneau didn’t come into Jurancon to teach the locals how to do better. Jardins de Babylone is mostly done by a local, Guy Pautrat. Didier Dagueneau joined guy Pautrat in this activity.
If by chance you can taste an old Clos Joliette (unfortunately not available in the US), you’ll be amazed by the quality and the complexity of an old Jurancon. Clos Joliette is the most iconic Jurancon wine ever made and the prices are very high in France (also so rare to find). These wines prove good Jurancon can age very well.
I am about to go to a nearby dinner! Theme is Thai food so taking along a spatlese AND the 2012 Clos Thou, Supreme de Thou. !00% Petit Manseng and sweet…Stay tuned forumites.
I am also a fan. I import a wonderfully bizarre wine from the south of France that is a blend of 50/50 Petit Manseng and Chenin Blanc. If anybody’s interested, please PM me (I won’t post on the public thread).
![[cheers.gif]](/uploads/db3686/original/2X/0/0ff9bfcdb0964982cd3240b6159868fbdf215b1a.gif "cheers"){kind=small}