The name means Tears of Gold and this is as unique a wine as we have on our whole list. A late harvest, “Noble Rot”, extensively aged “sweet wine” that offers up an incredible amount of complexity and harmonious balance. In fact, calling it a sweet wine does not do it justice, since the wonderful baked apple acidity offsets the residual sugar perfectly. It is not cloying or syrupy at all, yet retains all the aromatic charm associated with a wine like this. Simply delicious and very versatile!

CHARACTERISTICS

Pure gold coloured in the glass, the nose is highly aromatic with honey and barley sugar dominating and notes of baked peach and ginger spice. The palette offers up more barley sugar, baked apple, soft citrus flavours and a little Christmas spice. The zesty acidity offsets the residual sugar beautifully, keeping the wine fresh and perfectly balanced. Excellent chilled on its own for aperos, matching with fois gras, or to accompany baked desserts. It is likely to last for 20 years at least.

THE WINERY

Every cloud has a silver lining – 12 years ago Eric Vialade was faced with the prospect of selling his family winery to settle his Divorce, but fortunately along came Jan and Caryl Panman, a Dutch couple with a passion for wine and they offered an alternative solution. They took over the estate, but immediately employed Eric back as the manager and wine maker. Not only did this preserve all of Eric’s knowledge of the 30 Ha estate, but brought in new commitment and new financing to improve the cellar and drive quality. Situated at 350m amongst the trees in a designated Nature Reserve, the vines get all the benefit of Limoux’s unique climate which has given it the reputation of producing the best white wines in the south of France. This estate continues to go from strength to strength and is now turning out medal winning wines every year at what can only be described as fantastic value prices.