Banyuls: what do you all think

Last night popped a 1969 Mas Blanc Saint Martin Banyuls 375ml.

Nice sweet/dry contrast, quite lively, nice fruit qualities, good Christmas cake spice kaleidoscope - but the brandy component seemed out of balance/pronounced not integrated.

What’s your experience with Banyuls?

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Brandy component? Do you mean the spirit that is used to fortify the wine or something else? I’ve never had any brandy-like qualities in a Banyuls myself. Love the stuff - and the same goes to the other fortified wines of Roussillon as well.

Love Banyuls but somewhat difficult to find. Never had one as old as your having.

Yup…had the basic NV MasBlanc this weekend. To me, it tasted pretty much like any of your basic/run-of-the-mill PasoRobles Grenache!!! [snort.gif]
Actually, it a genre that really doesn’t appeal to me that much because of the alcohol, though I’ve had some older ones I liked quite a lot.
Tom

I have an 82 Dr Parce I bought for $12.95 decades ago when Parker said it went well w chocolate. Never felt like opening it.

Correct - the high note of pure distilled spirit, which I believe is grape brandy

Indeed. However, at least I associate the term “brandy” with oak-aged grape-based spirits, so if a wine is showing a “brandy” character, it normally translates to having an aroma of, say, Cognac or Armagnac or another grape spirit produced in that way. Not “pure” (i.e. unoaked) grape distillate. That probably threw me off.

I’d describe wines showing noticeable spirit character from the fortification simply as “boozy” or “spirituous”. The term “brandy” has a very different meaning, at least to me.

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I had a chance to try the 82 Dr. Parce Banyuls “Collection” a couple of years ago and it was showing quite nicely then - not that I drink a lot of Banyuls, though. Curious to hear your thoughts if you do come around and open yours.

Fair enough and understandable.

I meant pure white brandy

I love Banyuls, especially Dr. Parce’s. It’s not readily available in my area though.

I looked into this and found this piece from Wikipedia: “In the European Union, there are regulations that require products labelled as brandy, except “grain brandy”, to be produced exclusively from the distillation or redistillation of grape-based wine or grape-based “wine fortified for distillation” and aged a minimum of six months in oak.”

That’s why “pure white brandy” didn’t seem to make sense to me - we do have lots of white (un-oaked) grape distillates made in all wine-producing countries in Europe, but those just aren’t called “brandies”. At least to us, brandy is a term exclusively reserved for oaked grape-based spirits. I guess the people this side of the pond normally substitute “grappa”, “marc”, “aguardente”, “raki” or “chacha” for “white brandy” when talking about distilled grape spirits.

What’s interesting, though, is that most of these are grape pomace brandies and not grape wine brandies - I guess there’s just very little tradition of making un-aged “brandies” here. If wine-based distillate is made for consumption, is seems to be virtually always aged in oak and sold as “brandy” and only if the distillates are to be used for wine fortification, they are not aged (and in Jura, they oak-age even the marc that is used to fortify Macvin!).

We have visited a number of times. We love the region and VdN in general.

I have little experience of these wines, so don’t shoot me, but even Chapoutier Banyuls tastes nice to me. pileon

Would you say they have any resemblance to Vintage Port at all or would you say they are a totally different catagory?

Well, they’re both red and fortified and usually tend to carry vintage, so in that respect, yes. But they are similar like Italian reds are to New Zealand Pinot Noir, so not very much. Banyuls is often fortified at noticeably lower levels of ABV than VP (16 vs 20-21%), comes from different climate and is made mainly from Grenache, which is lower in color, tannins and acidity than the Douro varieties.

Furthermore, VP is almost invariably around 100 g/l in residual sugar, whereas the rs in Banyuls can vary noticeably. VP is also aged for 2 years in oak barrels stored in cool temperatures, whereas the aging times of Banyuls can range from one year to several and the barrels can be kept outside, lending a somewhat cooked character to the wines. So while on the surface they might seem similar, the differences can be quite big and and there’s much more stylistic variation in Banyuls compared to VP.

Thanks, Otto. How about Chapoutier? How would you rate them?

It’s surprisingly good, given that a) Chapoutier is a producer located in Rhône, not in Roussillon; b) I’m not the biggest fan of Chapoutier wines. At least the wine I’ve tasted (2012 Rimage) was surprisingly dry, spicy and bitter for a Banyuls with an impressive structure. Definitely capable of aging.

However, I think you can get a much better picture of the region by checking out the smaller local producers instead of the giant producer that doesn’t even come from the region.

I agree. Great wines. I guess Chapoutier bought out a good local producer or went into a partnership with a top regional expert. I can’t find anything on the 'net.

You don’t have to search for the whole 'net - all you need to do is to go to the Chapoutier website. There you can read that Chapoutier owns Domaine de Bila-Haut in Roussillon. Googling the domaine name, one can learn that Chapoutier built the winery in 2000 in Latour de France, Roussillon.

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I’ve had maybe 4 different vintages of Chapoutier’s Banyuls (and have always wondered where they were getting the grapes/must from) and I think they are pretty solid. I’m cellaring a few bottles too. I would not put them at the Dr. Parce level of quality though.

I do like Chapoutier’s general style though and buy some of his single vineyard Rhones.

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  1. These things are immortal. I’ve had Banyuls from the 30s and 40s that tasted ten years old.

  2. For what they are, they represent real value IMHO. (Given 1 and 2, therefore they also make great birth year gifts.)

  3. As another poster noted, they are maybe the best vinous foil for chocolate that I have so far encountered.

All equal I much prefer VP to banyuls, but they are certainly worthy of exploration.

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