BKWine tastes: Orange and dry wines from Jurançon, Domaine Cauhapé | August 2022

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This month we have tasted two dry white wines from one of our favourite regions, Jurançon. The producer is Domaine Cauhapé, one of the famous ones in the region, an estate of 54 hectares run for many years by Henri Ramonteu.

“BKWine Tastes” is a collection of wines we have tasted recently. It is often samples that producers have sent us to show us what they do, or other bottles that we have come across at tastings or on our tasting table in the office.

It is beautiful in Jurançon; the vines grow on gentle slopes in an undulating landscape south of the city of Pau in southern France. Jurançon belongs to the wine region known as the Southwest.

Pau is a town known for having been the birthplace of two future kings: Marshal Bernadotte, later to be king of Sweden under the name of Karl XIV Johan, and the popular French king Henri IV. He is said to have had his lips moistened with Jurançon wine at birth.

The proximity to both the Pyrenees Mountains and the Atlantic makes for a slightly tricky climate – there are also warm winds coming up from the Mediterranean – but experience has shown where the vines thrive best. Cool nights in summer and autumn help preserve the acidity which is so typical of the Jurançon wines. Also, the two most important grapes, gros manseng and petit manseng, give wines with a high and fresh acidity. Acidity is indeed a hallmark of Jurançon wines, both sweet and dry.

If it only says Jurançon on the label, the wine is sweet. The amount of residual sugar can vary. The warm southern winds in autumn create a climate that favours the phenomenon of passerillage, grapes that dry and shrivel on the vine. The harvest is late and starts in mid-October and can last until mid-November and even longer.

The sweet wines are often magnificent, but the dry ones have become our true favourites. These are wines with great character that you hardly find anywhere else. When a Jurançon wine is dry, it always says Jurançon Sec on the label.

La Canopée 2019, Domaine Cauhapé, Jurançon Sec
La Canopée 2019, Domaine Cauhapé, Jurançon Sec, copyright BKWine Photography

La Canopée 2019, Domaine Cauhapé, Jurançon Sec

100% petit manseng and grapes harvested as late as November, at the same time as the grapes for the sweet wines were picked. These well-ripened grapes give fullness and a slight hint of sweetness in the aroma, but the wine is completely dry on the palate with flavours of quince, pineapple and some honey. It is a complex wine, full-bodied and with high, fresh acidity. Really delicious. The wine ferments in one-year-old barriques and is then kept on its lees with batonnage for ten months. (22.90 from the estate)

Caü-ha-pé Mystère Jaune 2021 (Sec) Vin de France, Domaine Cauhapé

Mystère Jaune (the yellow mystery) is a very successful first attempt by Henri Ramonteu to make an orange wine, i.e. a white wine made with skin contact, just like red wine. The grape is petit manseng. The wine is outstanding, full-bodied, and very dry with structure and a pleasant bitterness on the palate, both in the attack and aftertaste. There are intense aromas of dried apricots and exotic spices. Lovely mouthfeel. The acidity feels slightly lower than usual for a petit manseng but is sufficient. An attractive, exciting and, as I said, excellent wine. (22.90 from the estate)

Caü-ha-pé Mystère Jaune 2021 (Sec) Vin de France, Domaine Cauhapé
Caü-ha-pé Mystère Jaune 2021 (Sec) Vin de France, Domaine Cauhapé, copyright BKWine Photography

Editor’s note:

We have been following, tasting and drinking the wines of Domaine Cauhapé for a long time. If I‘m not entirely mistaken, one of the first we discovered was actually a red wine Ramonteu made in the 90s, but that he no more makes (but it is quite possible that I am wrong on this).

But the flagships are, of course, the outstanding Jurançon wines. Why Jurançon is not world-famous is hard to understand. The wines are up there with a handful of others of the best whites in the world on the summit. We love the dry versions, Jurançon sec, with it very marked acidity, round body, very solid but elegant, and aromas of apples, candied fruit, and exotic fruit, combined into crisp dry style.

Quite a long time ago (in 2007) we did a video interview with Henri Ramonteu where he explains more about his wines. For the French-speaker.

You can also read more about the wines from Jurançon, as well as other wine regions in the South-West (Sud-Ouest) in this article: Unique wines and grapes in Sud-Ouest: Gaillac, Cahors, Madiran, Jurançon, Irouléguy, Béarn, Fronton and more.

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