I came across this wine recently. What caught my attention was that it is a grape – Terret blanc – that I can’t remember ever hearing about before. I’d so not heard of it that I need to keep checking when I want to mention it. At any rate, this seemed like a good enough reason to try the wine. It helped that I had more seafood in the fridge, so a Languedoc white seemed like it might go well. Plus, the wine buyer at Cambridge Wine Merchants responsible for this wine tends to pick interesting stuff.
In the glass
Clear, pale lemon. Yup, it looks like wine. Nothing unusual about it so far.
The nose
Nope. There is possibly the faintest whiff of something, but so faint I can’t even tell what it is. Or if it is. I may be imagining things. Again.
The palate
Nice! That’s my first reaction and my first notes in the palate section. Dry, zesty. I’m expecting citrus on the palate, but my first impressions are of stone fruits, peach and apricot. There is some citrus, and it is the citrus that comes through most vividly on the finish, which is long.
It’s actually a weird wine, overall. Or perhaps I should say ‘Intriguing,’ since it’s odd, but not in the Trump / Vance sort of way. This time, it’s a good way. It starts off with a light to medium body, but then it sort of goes through phases. Just before the finish, it feels almost watery. My notes say ‘split into two.’ It’s like the wine changes. And then it changes yet again. The memory of the mouthfeel, a sense-impression, if you will, is bigger than the actual impression on tasting it.
Rating
Yummy-plus. It’s wine on visuals.
It’s interesting to go completely blind into a wine. Not knowing the grape, which is, (surreptitiously checks notes) Terret blanc meant I didn’t even have that sort of background. But I like it. It would be interesting to see what friends made of it.
It is nice on its own, but probably goes a bit better with food. This time, it was crab cakes and halloumi fries. Yum.
Sustainability
Nothing that I can find.
The technical info
12.5%, Terret blanc, £12.50, from Cambridge Wine Merchants