Chasan

I just found out that I had unexpectedly tasted a grape that I had never tasted before during my Lourdes trip, and that was on the flight back from Paris. I forgot what I had for the meal but decided that I would try the white wine they were offering a Pays d'Oc IGP wine made from Chasan and Chardonnay. It was when I reviewed the pictures that I realised the possibility of the new grape and looking it up, I found that Chasan was a grape created in 1958, and possibly by crossing Chardonnay with Listan (or Palomino, the sherry grape). It is a grape grown mainly in the Languedoc region. Early budding but ripening late, it often does not get the chance to develop complexity and tends to end up in experimental Vin de Pays blends

As for this wine, it was a pale lemon with a slightly sweet fruity nose,. It was sweet acid and fruity on the palate with some nice acid in support.

Revisiting an aged white Rioja after a day

White wines don't age; neither can they survive being opened for long - so goes the accepted wisdom. Well, we did not finished the bottle of 26 year old white Rioja, so I put it back into the refrigerator to consume the next day. Well, I ended up drinking the remainder of the bottle on the third day after opening (day of opening = day 1). It was far from spoilt or dead. The wine remained fragrant and aromatic , with a large smattering of wood as before. The flowery character was less evident but the peachy notes on the palate was more pronounced in mid-palate and towards the end. Like the Coulee de Serrant I has blogged about before, this proves that certain white wines can be aired for a prolonged period.

A white Rioja at 26 years

This is a wine I tasted 5 years ago and I blogged about it then. Five years on, I have come to revisit it and it was still a very nice experience. A friend was treating us to dinner and everyone was taking some wine along. I thought this would be something unusual; after all, I am not sure how many old white wines of this age or more I had drunk. Alright, let us discount the fortified wines first, and maybe the nobly rotten dessert wines next. I did recall tasting a top white Burgundy from the mid 1970s in maybe 2001, which would make it around the same age as this one at tasting. I checked in my Eurocave and noticed another example of this wine from 1981, so that should take the record for aged dry whites when I get around to tasting it.

The wine is now a nice golden yellow, with a fragrant flowery fruity nose. The palate was sweet woody acid with a slight hint of peach, leading onto a good acid backbone (hint still of peach). Comparing notes with some 5 years ago, the wood was less evident on the nose and the vanilla notes were well tempered. The woody fruit evolved into something more peachy with aging. Everyone there was impressed with this veteran.