I recently purchased a 1945 vintage online from Inside The Grape. It is listed as “Domaine Singla - Riversaltes Ambre Heritage du Temps - Grenache Noir / Grenache Blanc - Vin Doux Naturel - Rivesaltes - Languedoc Roussillon”
Being from 1945, I expected the bottle to appear very old like all the other wines from this time period I’ve seen. Instead, when it arrived, the bottle appears fairly new and the labels are certainly brand new.
I do not know much about wine or much about the Winery this is from, so any help would be greatly appreciated. Is this juice actually from 1945?!
So these Rivesaltes have been sitting in barrels undisturbed for decades. They are only recently bottling some of them. I had a 1935 and 1963. Both same as you described. It’s how they are now due to recent bottling
As David notes, it’s not unusual for Rivesaltes to be in foudre for decades. Kinda like Colheita port. I don’t know Singla (my Rivesaltes experience is 80% Cazes) but assume these were late bottles.
And even in places that bottle on a more normal schedule but hold wine, labels are often not applied till they leave producer cellar.
But what a weird retailer website- extensive TOS, but no phone contact or physical address (that I saw in brief perusal)
If the bottle was old, the wine would’ve been most likely less interesting, since Rivesaltes (as other oxidative wines as well) develop only in the barrel. Once the wine is bottled, the development grinds down to a halt.
It took some explaining for a few people to understand why a 1874 Sisqueille Rivesaltes we had in a Rivesaltes tasting looked like the bottle was only a few years old - because it really was! Only the wine wasn’t.
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