Crémant de Limoux: The Crémant from the Birthplace of Sparkling Wine!

Show Notes

Episode #242: Crémant de Limoux: The Crémant from the Birthplace of Sparkling Wine!  00:00

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KEY QUESTIONS

• Is Limoux the birthplace of sparkling wine?
• What is Crémant de Limoux?
• Is Crémant de Limoux good with Thanksgiving dinner?
• What is the difference between Crémant de Limoux and Blanquette de Limoux?
• Is Crémant de Limoux a good alternative to Champagne?
• What is Limoux méthode ancestrale?
• What does Crémant de Limoux taste like?
  
  

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Episode Overview and First Thoughts on Crémant de Limoux and the origins of sparkling wine in Limoux  00:34
Hello fellow Amoureux du vin! And welcome to The Wine Pair Podcast. I’m Joe, your sommelier of reasonably priced wine, and this is my wife and my wine pairing partner in crime, Carmela. And we are The Wine Pair!

If you're new to our podcast, here's what we do: Every week we buy wines under $25 with our own money, taste them, and give you our brutally honest opinion on whether they're worth buying. Nobody pays us to review specific wines, we don't accept free bottles from wineries, and we're not afraid to call out a bad wine when we taste one. Decanter Magazine calls us fun, irreverent, chatty, and entertaining - so if that sounds like your vibe, welcome to our tribe of wine lovers.

The name of the tribe that I badly pronounced today means wine lovers in French, and feel free to send us names for the tribe and we will ask you if you want to be on the podcast for a quick hello!

Carmela, we are back for another episode on Crémant, the sparkling wine that flies under most radars that we love. Now, for those of you who have missed a few episodes or are new to the show, about a month ago we did an episode on Crémant and talked about how there are 10 official regions recognized for making Crémant, eight in France, one in Luxembourg and one in Belgium. And, at that time, we said we would try to see if we can do episodes on all of them, and so we are back again, this time to talk about Crémant de Limoux. (Lee Moo)

In a few minutes we are going to learn all about Crémant de Limoux, but first, we are going to learn about what makes Limoux such an important place for sparkling wine. We did actually mention this in our previous Crémant episode, but, dear friends, Limoux is, believe it or not, the birthplace of sparkling wine. And we are going to tell you the story.

The story begins in 1531, and, as it should, with Benedictine monks at the Abbaye de Saint-Hilarie which is in the Pyrenees mountains along the Aude River near Limoux. And, of course that’s where the story begins because, again, if you want to know anything about alcohol in Europe, start with the monks!

The men of the Benedictine abbey did not set out to make sparkling wine, and in fact, it happened quite by accident. In 1531, the monks wrote down the first recorded instance of bottle-fermented sparkling wine, and this is how it happened. The monks harvested the local Mauzac grape which was known in the local language as blanqueto which means “small white.”  And, remember that, because it will come up again.They pressed the grapes and bottled the wine late in autumn before fermentation was fully finished, which left behind residual unfermented grape sugars and live yeast inside the sealed flasks.

As winter set in, the cold mountain weather chilled the stone cellars they were stored in, and the drop in temperature put the yeast to sleep, which temporarily halted fermentation. When spring came, the cellar temperatures rose which made the sleeping yeast wake up, and so it started eating the remaining sugars inside the sealed bottles. Because the flasks were sealed, the trapped carbon dioxide gas dissolved into the liquid, creating the bubbles we know and love in sparkling wine.

A couple of factors helped to make this more likely to happen in this region vs. others. The first is that, at the time, many winemakers relied on wooden plugs wrapped in hemp to seal the bottles. This was not a great method, and containers often leaked, allowing air in, which created oxidation, and even could spoil the wine. However, Saint-Hilaire had access to cork stoppers from the nearby oak cork forests of Catalonia. Cork is a much better stopper and so the cork created an airtight seal which held the pressurized gas in the container.

The second factor was the bottles. In the medieval period, glass making was done by hand, and so the quality and strength of the bottles could vary quite a bit. Fragile glass would break under the pressure created by the gas, and often one bottle exploding would then create a chain reaction in the cellars and caves. Rather than using glass, some historians think that the monks used ceramic containers instead. By the way, the explosive nature of the wine they were making did cause them to call the wine Le Vin du Diable or The Devil’s Wine. Those crazy monks.

Anyway, this 16th-century technique remains codified today as AOC Blanquette Méthode Ancestrale. The wine is
Made from 100% Mauzac grapes.
No secondary yeast/sugar or tirage is added, and the wine is never disgorged to remove the old yeast sediment left behind, which they do in most bottle-fermented sparkling wines.
Because the dead yeast cells remain in the bottle, the wine is naturally cloudy, gently sparkling, and low in alcohol, usually under 7% ABV

Interestingly, there is a myth related to Dom Pérignon, who is the monk often credited with inventing champagne. The story is that he visited Saint-Hilaire on a pilgrimage to Santiago de Compostela and brought the secret of bottle re-fermentation from the monks in Limoux north to Champagne. Wine historians have since debunked this legend, clarifying that, while he did visit Saint-Hilaire, his work focused on perfecting still white wines, while English records regarding intentional sparkling wine bottle production and Champagne references came much later.

In another interesting story, Thomas Jefferson’s famous wine cellar was said to have been full of Blanquette de Limoux, and that 10% of his wine collection at Monticello was of that wine. Crazy.

Today, in Limoux, there are three different types of sparkling wine styles
Blanquette de Limoux Méthode Ancestrale: The closest modern equivalent to what the monks made in 1531. Still made from 100% Mauzac, and the primary fermentation is partially stopped and finished directly in the bottle. Sort of feels like a pet-nat
Blanquette de Limoux AOC: Was ifficially established in 1938 as France's first dedicated sparkling wine appellation. It must be a minimum of 90% Mauzac, and can be blended with up to 10% Chardonnay and Chenin Blanc, and it undergoes secondary bottle fermentation with at least 9 months of lees aging before disgorgement
Crémant de Limoux AOC: Introduced in 1990 for an international, Chardonnay-forward style

But I am not going to tell you all about Crémant de Limoux just yet, we’ll do that in a couple of minutes, and then we have two Crémant de Limoux wines, one a blanc, and one a rosé to see if either or both of them are worth your hard earned money and maybe a spot on your Thanksgiving table . . .

But first . . . we have to do our shameless plug.

Thank you for listening to us and for supporting our show, and know that we buy all of the wine we taste and review every week so that we can give you real and honest reviews. If you like what you’re hearing, please subscribe to our podcast and leave us a five star rating and review so we can grow listeners.

We also love to hear from you and we always respond so you can follow us on Instagram and Bluesky and TikTok at thewinepairpodcast. You can contact us on our website thewinepairpodcast.com, and you can sign up for our email newsletter there and you can also send us a note at joe@thewinepairpodcast.com and let us know about wines your want us to review or just shoot the breeze, we love chatting it up.

And, as we do every week, we’ll tell you someone we think you should recommend The Wine Pair Podcast to - because the best way for us to grow listeners is when you tell your family and friends about us - and this week, we want you to recommend us to anyone who thinks that all sparkling wine is that sweet Prosecco stuff because, while we know people love it, there is more to sparkling wine than that!


Topic: WTF is Crémant de Limoux? 10:48

Carmela, let’s find out just what the eff Crémant de Limoux is, shall we?

So, this is really interesting. Despite the fact that sparkling wine as we know it today started in Limoux almost 500 years ago, Crémant de Limoux is actually a pretty new wine. And, in fact, there was almost a battle to the death between Crémant de Limoux and Blanquette de Limoux. Sounds dramatic, but it’s kind of true. 

In 1989, Limoux winemakers were in a frenzy, and they found themselves divided over a crucial decision: whether they should be strict and maintain the traditional Mauzac-heavy sparkling wine Blanquette de Limoux or relax appellation regulations to allow greater proportions of international grape varieties. Remember how I said Mauzac and blanqueto would come back around?

The reason this even came out is because in the later part of the 20th century, a strong global demand for Chardonnay and Chenin Blanc-forward sparkling wines started to grow. So, the makers of sparkling wine in Limoux were torn. 

Some wanted to strictly preserve the historic Blanquette de Limoux. Others wanted to incorporate higher proportions of Chardonnay and Chenin Blanc to create the more modern, crisp sparkling styles that people were starting to really prefer. 

To resolve this debate without killing the historic heritage of Mauzac, French authorities officially created the Crémant de Limoux AOC on August 21, 1990. Now, what is funny is that the initial plan was to give the winemakers until the end of 1994 to decide which appellation would survive. And the expectation was that Crémant would eventually replace Blanquette. But the winemakers weren't willing to give up their historic Blanquette, so they just kept making both. And eventually, the French government had to change the law to allow both appellations to coexist. Hooray. We can all live together even if we are different, right?!? I mean, you can be red in a blue state and blue in red state, amiright?!?

Now, you might be wondering whether the winemakers who started making Crémant de Limoux were different from the ones making Blanquette de Limoux. And the answer is, not really. Many of the same winemakers who had been making Blanquette simply started making Crémant as well. 

In fact, one of the biggest producers, a cooperative called Sieur d'Arques, which was founded in 1946 specifically to make Blanquette, today makes both. And they're not alone. Some of the oldest family wineries in Limoux also produce both styles. So, while there was some disagreement about the direction sparkling wine should take in the region, the creation of Crémant didn't divide winemakers into two competing groups. They weren’t red or blue. It simply gave them another kind of sparkling wine they could make, and so both could live together in harmony.

You may wonder what kind of reputation Crémant de Limoux has today. Well, it's often called one of the best-kept secrets in French sparkling wine. Wine experts and sommeliers consider it a great alternative to Champagne because it's made in the same way Champagne is, but costs a fraction of the price. Which is true for most Crémant. And it's not just Champagne that it compares favorably to. Crémant de Limoux also holds its own against other popular sparkling wines like Spanish Cava and other French Crémants, especially when it comes to quality for the price. You can find some really good bottles for around $15 to $35, which makes it a pretty fantastic value.

Compared to other Crémant wines, it is considered fruity and acidic. In fact, in 2021, Decanter published a guide based on tasting 120 Crémants from across France, including eight from Limoux, 68 from Bourgogne, 27 from Alsace, and 11 from Loire.

Their conclusion: 

• Limoux and Loire: Generally fruitier, with crisp apple flavors and pronounced acidity.
• Bourgogne: Rich, yeasty, with buttery pastry flavors.
• Alsace: A more neutral base that allows flavors from lees aging to stand out.
• The particularly interesting observation was that Limoux's use of Mauzac can introduce tropical fruit characteristics that distinguish it from Loire.

But, here's the funny thing about calling it a best-kept secret, because the secret may be getting out. In 2025, about 8 million bottles of Crémant de Limoux were sold, with more than half exported outside of France. And sales have nearly doubled over the past decade. That puts it in fifth place among the eight French Crémant regions, and compares to Alsace, which sold more than 40 million bottles, and Loire, which sold more than 31 million. So, it's still a relatively small player compared to the big guys, but they are growing.

I am very excited to try this wine because we love sparkling wine and Crémant. And given the profile I just mentioned, I have a feeling it might be right up our alley!

I think it’s time to learn a little more about the specific wines we are drinking today. Whaddya say?

Crémant de Limoux Wines We Chose for This Episode 17:04

As usual, the wines we have chosen for this episode are under $25, and they should be relatively easy to find because I bought them at wine.com. In general, Crémant is getting much easier to find if you go to a good wine shop or a store with a good wine selection. It will be harder to find Crémant de Limoux, but if you find a store with a good French or sparkling wine selection, you should have no problem. And, again, go to your local wine shop and ask them to help you and they will be happy to oblige. 

The first wine we are going to drink tonight is the Vanderpump Crémant di Limoux Brut. As with most sparkling wines, it has no vintage. And remember, Brut means dry in sparkling wine, meaning it generally has very little to no residual sugar left. It got a 93 rating from the Tasting Panel, and it is made from 70% Chardonnay, 20% Chenin, and 10% Mauzac.

There was really very little information about this wine, and no tech sheet that I could find. The website just says “Made in the Traditional Method, with 24 months aging on lees.”

I tried to do a little more digging and this is what I found. According to a review in The Tasting Panel, the wine comes from Maison Antech, which is a historic sparkling wine producer in Limoux with a winemaking history dating back six generations. Today, the winery is led by Françoise Antech-Gazeau, a descendant of the original Antech family. So, while Vanderpump is the name on the bottle, there's a legitimate, well-established French sparkling wine producer behind it.

Assuming the information is correct, Maison Antech does make its own Crémant de Limoux called Cuvée Françoise as well, with exactly the same blend of grapes. So, this is a stretch, but I am going to include what Antech says about their winemaking techniques, and assume at least some of them transfer over to Vanderpump. Antech hand-harvests its grapes, gently presses them, ferments the varieties separately at low temperatures, and blends the wines before the second fermentation. Again, we can't confirm that Vanderpump follows exactly the same process, or that it's the same wine with a different label. But it is better than what the winery website said. 

So, let’s move onto our second wine. The second wine we are going to drink is the Faire la Fête Crémant de Limoux Brut Rosé, and this wine got a 92 from the Tasting Panel and a 91 from Wilfred Wong who is the wine critic they use on wine.com. The wine is made from 65% Chardonnay, 20% Chenin Blanc, 15% Pinot Noir, so no Mauzac at all. Again, there was very little I could find out about this wine in terms of tech sheets or things like that. On wine.com, the winery notes are that the wine is “Sustainably hand-harvested, vegan-friendly, gluten free, and low sugar.”

So, because I could not find out much information, I did some digging on this wine, too, and found an interesting story. Faire la Fête was launched in 2015 and acquired in 2018 by an American company called First Growth Brands. The company works with French grape-growing families in Limoux, some of whom have been growing grapes for eight generations. These families also own the winemaking facilities where the wines are produced. First Growth Brands brought in an American winemaker named Alex Cose, who previously worked on the popular Mark West Pinot Noir brand, to help oversee production. So, while Faire la Fête is an American-owned brand, the wine itself is made in France.

The grapes are reportedly hand-harvested and whole-cluster pressed, and the wine is made using the traditional method, with the second fermentation happening in the bottle. It spends at least 15 months aging on the lees. The Pinot Noir is what gives the wine its pink color. Interestingly, the company says that the entire winemaking process takes approximately two years from start to finish. 

So, I am going to be open minded, but I feel like I got two wines that may be more about the brands than the wine, but we will see. Let’s give them a fair shot, what do you say? And, when we do our tasting, we’ll let you know if we think these wines are Thanksgiving table worthy.

All right, let’s get to drinking! If you have these wines or similar wines, drink along with us to get some participation points

LINKS TO SOURCES FOR THESE SPECIFIC WINES

• https://vanderpumpwines.com/products/Crémant-brut?srsltid=AYCX9vL2HtYvAgLpHL7UHqnxnL4dM2zkRiCh7DTyBOAGaROa3Kqn-8DA
• https://www.tastingpanelmag.com/review/page/213
• https://cuveefrancoise.com 
• https://venumagazine.com/faire-la-fete-french-bubbly
• https://www.winebusiness.com/news/article/205471 

Vanderpump Crémant di Limoux Brut, Faire la Fête Crémant de Limoux Brut Rosé Wine Tasting, Pairing, and Review 23:20

Wine: Vanderpump Crémant di Limoux Brut (Click here to fine this wine on wine.com. We may be compensated if you purchase)
Region: France, Limoux
Vintage: NV
Price: $24.99
Retailer: wine.com
Alcohol: 12%
Grapes: 70% Chardonnay, 20% Chenin, and 10% Mauzac
Professional Rating: TP 93 Vivino

What we tasted and smelled in this Vanderpump Crémant di Limoux Brut: 

• Color: Gold, yellow with green hue
• On the nose: Yeasty, grapefruit, citrus, cantaloupe, astringent, hint of apple, sparkling cider
• In the mouth: Orange, Aperol spritz, pink grapefruit bitterness on the end, a bit one note, good mousse

Food to pair with this Vanderpump Crémant di Limoux Brut: Appetizers, cheese board, stinky or sharp cheese, a food wine, great with the Thanksgiving meal
Thanksgiving worthy? For sure! great both on the table and with the food
 
As a reminder on our rating scale, we rate on a scale of 1-10, with no half points, where 7 and above means that we would buy it, and 4 and below means that we are likely to pour it down the sink, and a 5 or 6 means we are likely to drink it and finish it, but we are probably not going to buy it. 

Vanderpump Crémant di Limoux Brut Wine Rating: 

• Joe: 7/10
• Carmela: 7/10

Wine: Faire la Fête Crémant de Limoux Brut Rosé (Click here to find this wine on wine.com. We may be compensated if you purchase)
Region: France, Limoux
Vintage: NV
Price: $25.97
Retailer: wine.com
Alcohol: 12%
Grapes: 65% Chardonnay, 20% Chenin Blanc, 15% Pinot Noir
Professional Rating: TP 92 Vivino

What we tasted and smelled in this Faire la Fête Crémant de Limoux Brut Rosé: 

• Color: Pink, with a touch of orange
• On the nose: Crunchy red fruit, cranberry, raspberry, a little citrus, fresh, fruity, a touch of sweetness, no yeast, fresh air
• In the mouth: Orange juice, fruit juice, raspberry juice, cranberry juice, Capri Sun, Bartles and Jaymes wine cooler, cocktail, cranberry vodka cocktail, strawberry lemonade

Food to pair with this Faire la Fête Crémant de Limoux Brut Rosé: Thanksgiving food, salty foods, fish and chips
Thanksgiving worthy? Yes


Faire la Fête Crémant de Limoux Brut Rosé Wine Rating: 

• Joe: 7/10
• Carmela: 6/10

Which one of these are you finishing tonight?

• Carmela: Vanderpump Crémant di Limoux Brut
• Joe: Faire la Fête Crémant de Limoux Brut Rosé

The Test: Did we nail the taste profiles expected from Crémant de Limoux?  40:06

• General 
  • Flavors and aromas: Crisp citrus (lemon zest, grapefruit), green apple, peach, and white flowers, with subtle elderflower accent
  • With lees aging: Toasted brioche, fresh biscuit, buttercream, toasted almond, and hazelnut
  • Crisp, refreshing acidity, a soft, creamy mousse, and a clean wet-stone mineral finish
  • Rosé: Adds notes of crushed raspberries, strawberries, and red apple and mineral freshness
• Vanderpump Crémant di Limoux Brut
  • Winery: The nose reveals notes of green apple and candied lemon, while the palate offers crisp acidity and balanced effervescence.
  • TP: A perfume of vanilla custard and tangerine is accompanied by the aroma of bread dough, and the bubbles are vivacious, revealing notes of lemon drop and white flowers.
• Faire la Fête Crémant de Limoux Brut Rosé
  • Winery: aromas of white cherry and just-ripened wild strawberries. Fresh citrus acidity is balanced by minerality and a brioche and shortcake finish.
  • WW: This wine exhibits attractive aromas and flavors of ripe strawberries and spicy earth
  • TP: mingles scents of baguette, strawberry, salty lime, and red apple with crisp acidity and flavors of more strawberry and ruby grapefruit, which lead to touches of grassy herb and white pepper.

What is our verdict on Crémant de Limoux? 42:05
We liked it, maybe not loved it. Maybe we got wines that were more brand wines than real grower sparkling wine. Good. Would like to try more to make sure we are getting the best representation.


And now it is time to head over to our news desk so that we can cover our wine in the news this week segment.

Wine in the news this week: Surprise 400-pound tasters sample Redwood Valley vineyard grapes 42:57

• https://mendovoice.com/2026/10/surprise-400-pound-tasters-sample-redwood-valley-vineyard-grapes/ 

Our wine in the news this week comes from Julie Ann Kodmur writing for Bay City News, and the article is called "Surprise 400-pound tasters sample Redwood Valley vineyard grapes." By the way, the links to this article and all of the articles we use for research are in the show notes as always.

So that story takes place at the Barra of Mendocino winery in Redwood Valley, California, where the family's home vineyard was first planted back in 1955. Martha Barra and her late husband Charlie were some of the early champions of organic farming in the county, and they have farmed that way for about fifty years.

But that’s not the story. Here’s the story. About two weeks before harvest started in August, two herds of Tule elk, about 30 animals in all, wandered into the vineyard. You may be wondering what the hell a Tule elk is, but it is a kind of elk that only lives in California, and according to the headline, each one weighs around 400 pounds.

It turns out the elk were no dummies, and went straight for the ripe Pinot Blanc and Pinot Noir. They also ate the tender new growth on some young Pinot Noir vines the winery had just planted, which means those vines will now take at least an extra year to mature.

The Barras tried just about everything to get rid of them, including motion-activated lights, fencing, an electric fence, and even herding them out with ATVs. None of it worked, and the elk stayed for most of the harvest. In fact, the only thing that finally drove them off was when the winery started harvesting with machines at night which probably freaked them out, and the elk disappeared just two days before harvest wrapped up.

Interestingly, Martha Barra thinks the elk came precisely because of the organic farming, saying something to the effect that fifty years of farming organically may have attracted the wildlife. And she said the harvest still turned out well, with very good quality fruit even after the elk got tothem.

Carmela, what do you think? We have been dealing with wild animals. Lately. What should we do?!? Plant grapes?

Listener Shoutouts 47:12

• Adrienne AKA Art Metal Girl on Insta  boxed wine video
• Justin from Canada, TikTok (didn’t realize it was him) said that he had mentioned Grillo to us in a note and I stupidly forgot to mention that last week
• Tips2LiveBy Just came back from Sicily and while she did not have Grillo, she though Sicily wine was amazing
• East Idaho Foodies reached out in insta to say they just tried Ochhipinti wine, specifically a blend of Frappato and Nero d’Avola and I think they liked it. They said it had crunchy red fruit and barnyard. 
• Also want to just note that Allison Luvera from Juliet wine reached out to us on insta and offered to send us some more wine because the wine we had may have been bad, and I just thought that was a very nice gesture. 

Wines coming up in future episodes in case you want to drink along with us 49:25

• Erbaluce: Cieck Erbaluce di Caluso 2024, Luigi Ferrando La Torrazza Erbaluce di Caluso 2024
• Mondeuse: 2020 Bernard et Christophe Richel Savoie Mondeuse, 2023 Domaine Jean Vullien & Fils Mondeuse
• Cote du Rhone: Domaine de la Janasse Cotes du Rhone Reserve 2022, E. Guigal Cotes du Rhone Rouge 2023
• Burgundy Cremant: Simonnet-Febvre Cremant de Bourgogne Brut, JCB No. 69 Brut Rose Cremant de Bourgogne

Outro and how to find The Wine Pair Podcast 49:44

Thank you for listening to us and for supporting our show, and remember, we buy all of our own wine and we do all of the writing and recording and editing to bring you a show every week because we absolutely love doing it, and our small little ask for you is that you please follow or subscribe to our podcast and also please leave us a nice rating and review  to help us grow our listeners - and a huge thank you to all of you who have done so already! 

You can also follow us on Instagram and Bluesky and TikTok at thewinepairpodcast. You can contact us on our website thewinepairpodcast.com, and you can sign up for our email newsletter there and you can also visit our “Shop Wine” section where you can find links to buy the wines that we rate as buys in each episode.  I will also note that on our website, if you are curious about a wine we have covered in the past, we do have a pretty good search functionality, so you can use that find wines you want to know more about. 

And we want to make content you care about and you like, so send us a note or DM us and give us some feedback or let us know if there are wines you want us to try or wine making areas of the world you are curious about - and we’ll take care of it! joe@thewinepairpodcast.com 

Alright, with that, we are going to sign off, so thanks again, and we will see you next time. And, as we say, life is short, so stop drinking shitty wine.

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FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS

Q. Is Limoux the birthplace of sparkling wine?
A. By the earliest written record, yes. Benedictine monks at the Abbey of Saint-Hilaire near Limoux documented their bubbly Mauzac wine in 1531. They bottled it before fermentation finished, and cork stoppers from nearby Catalonia held in the bubbles. The story that Dom Pérignon carried the idea to Champagne is almost certainly a legend.

Q. What is Crémant de Limoux?
A. Crémant de Limoux is a sparkling wine from the Pyrenees foothills around Limoux in southern France, made by the same basic method as Champagne. It became an official appellation in 1990 as a modern, Chardonnay-led style, blended mainly with Chenin Blanc and sometimes a little Mauzac or Pinot Noir, unlike the older Mauzac-based Blanquette de Limoux.

Q. Is Crémant de Limoux good with Thanksgiving dinner?
A. It looks like a good fit. Brut sparkling wine is food-friendly, and they can have a basic, easygoing flavor and good acidity that goes with many foods, so Crémant de Limoux can stay on the table through the meal, from turkey to cranberry sauce, gravy and even mac and cheese. A Brut Rosé also seemed a match for mashed potatoes and salty dishes.

Q. What is the difference between Crémant de Limoux and Blanquette de Limoux?
A. Mainly the grapes. Blanquette de Limoux is the traditional style, at least 90% Mauzac, with an appellation dating to 1938. Crémant de Limoux, created in 1990, is a Chardonnay-led blend with Chenin Blanc for a more international taste, while Blanquette keeps the local grape front and center.

Q. Is Crémant de Limoux a good alternative to Champagne?
A. Yes, if you want Champagne-method bubbles for much less money. The two bottles we drank were good but fairly simple, one very yeasty and one all fruit, so a small grower's bottle may show the region better.

Q. What is Limoux méthode ancestrale?
A. It's Limoux's oldest sparkling style and the closest to what the monks made: 100% Mauzac, bottled before fermentation finishes so the bubbles form in the bottle, and never disgorged, so it stays cloudy, gently sparkling and usually under 7% alcohol. If you like pet-nat, it will feel familiar.

Q. What does Crémant de Limoux taste like?
A. The two bottles we drank leaned citrusy, though style varies with the blend. A Chardonnay, Chenin Blanc and Mauzac Brut smelled yeasty, with grapefruit, then tasted of orange with mouth-filling bubbles and a pink-grapefruit bitterness at the end, a bit one-note. A Pinot Noir-tinted Brut Rosé skipped the yeast for cranberry, raspberry and strawberry-lemonade fruit, almost like a wine cooler.

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RESEARCH ARTICLES AND LINKS FOR THIS EPISODE

• https://francetoday.com/food-drink/wine_and_spirits/Crémant-de-limoux-frances-first-sparkling-wine-region/
• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Limoux_wine
• https://pullthatcork.com/2023/limoux-sparkling-wine/
• https://domaine-rosier.com/en/history-of-sparkling-wine.php
• https://www.winekeller.com/blog/discover-limoux-sparkling-wine-in-frances-languedoc-region
• https://thegoodlifefrance.com/first-ever-sparkling-wine-france/
• https://www.winewithseth.com/winewiki/Crémant-de-limoux-aoc/
• https://www.reuters.com/article/business/frances-oldest-sparkling-wine-fights-for-its-future-idUSLNE85C009/
• https://www.cellartours.com/blog/france/Crémant-frances-forgotten-sparkling-wine
• https://www.grape-experiences.com/2012/11/giving-thanks-to-the-benedictine-monks-of-limoux/
• https://www.vijoms.com/post/uncovering-the-mystery-behind-blanquette-de-limoux
• https://vinsdefrance.ee/en/articles/post/introduction-to-Crémant
• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y02St3u_R6I
• https://www.limoux-aoc.com/en/vineyards#!vineyards-history
• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=av0ZvyqyRxM
• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vUZQvr9T4Bc
• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xKynMbebwc0 
• https://oddbacchus.com/2012/01/the-worlds-oldest-sparkling-wine/
• https://jillbarth.wordpress.com/2016/09/11/the-original-bubbly-blanquette-de-limoux/
• https://www.winewithseth.com/winewiki/blanquette-de-limoux-aoc-mauzac-based-worlds-oldest-sparkling-wine-region/
• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vTAVjfBI_S0
• https://glassofbubbly.com/limoux-the-oldest-sparkling-wine-in-the-world/
• https://laramoneta.com/to-see/abbaye-de-saint-hilaire-and-the-sparkling-wine-legend/
• https://grapevinemagazine.ca/articles/blanquette-de-limoux-and-saint-hilaire-and-the-birth-of-champagne/

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FULL TRANSCRIPT

Joe: 00:00
Carmela, Thanksgiving is coming up pretty soon.

Carmela: 00:02
It's just around the bend.

Joe: 00:04
And what else do you want on your Thanksgiving table but a sparkling wine? That's all I want. Now, maybe some people haven't thought about that, but sparkling wine is actually fantastic with Thanksgiving. Yes. And we think Cremont is a great sparkling wine for Thanksgiving because it's got the right taste and it's got the right price. And from what we're going to cover today, it might have the right color as well.

Carmela: 00:26
Oh, I love it.

Joe: 00:34
Hello, fellow Amaro DuVon. And welcome to the Wine Pair Podcast. I'm Joe, your Samoya of reasonably priced wine, and this is my wife who gave me a really dirty look. No. And my wine pairing partner in crime, Carmela.

Carmela: 00:47
It wasn't a dirty Oh, hi there! It wasn't a dirty look. Did you think that was a dirty look?

Joe: 00:53
I did. And we are the wine pair. If you're new to our podcast, here's what we do. Every week we buy wines under $25 with our own money. We taste them and we give you our brutally honest opinion on whether they're worth buying. Nobody pays us to review specific wines. We don't accept free bottles from wineries, and we're not afraid to call out a bad wine when we taste one. And Dickactor magazine calls us fun, irreverent, and entertaining. So if that sounds like your vibe, welcome to our tribe of wine lovers or amoureaux dubon.

Carmela: 01:22
And that is something else. Who gave us that?

Joe: 01:25
Me, the name of the tribe, Carmilla, yeah, that I badly pronounced today means wine lovers in French.

Carmela: 01:30
Oh my goodness, you're so clever.

Joe: 01:32
Thanks. And of course, feel free to send us names for the tribe, and we'll ask you if you want to be on the pod.

Carmela: 01:37
Right.

Joe: 01:38
Carmilla, we are back for another episode on Cremont.

Carmela: 01:41
Ooh.

Joe: 01:42
The sparkling wine that flies under most radars, but that we love. Right. Now, for those of you who may have missed a few episodes or are new to the show, about a month ago we did an episode on Cremont, and we talked about how there are 10 official regions recognized for making Cremont, eight in France, one in Luxembourg, and one in Belgium. And at that time, we said we would try and see how many episodes we can do on them. Like how many of the different episodes are. Oh my gosh.

Carmela: 02:07
So wow, this is number two.

Joe: 02:08
Yep. So we're back, and this time we're here to talk about Cremont de Lemou. Lemou, that's right. In a few minutes, we're gonna talk all about Cremont de Lemux, but first we're gonna learn about what makes Lemou itself such an important place for sparkling wine. And we did actually mention this in our previous Cremont episode, but dear friends, Lemou is, believe it or not, the birthplace of sparkling wine.

Carmela: 02:37
Really?

Joe: 02:38
And we're you reacted the same way the last time I said that.

Carmela: 02:41
Oh look at it. I'm just trying to make it exciting. I know, you're just I'm trying to be like enthusiastic. I love it.

Joe: 02:48
Um we're gonna tell you the whole story.

Carmela: 02:50
Okay.

Joe: 02:51
The story, Carmella, begins in 1531, and as it should, with Benedictine monks. Of course. In the Abbey de Saint-Hilaire, which is in the Pyrenees Mountains along the Eude River near Lemu. And of course, that's where the story begins because if you want to know anything about alcohol in Europe, you gotta follow the monks.

Carmela: 03:14
Um, yeah, that's no joke.

Joe: 03:16
No, no duh. The men of the Benedictine Abbey did not set out to make sparkling wine, Carmilla. In fact, it was an accident.

Carmela: 03:24
Oh.

Joe: 03:25
That's right.

Carmela: 03:25
I don't believe it.

Joe: 03:26
No, it totally was. In 1531, the monks wrote down the first recorded instance of bottle fermented sparkling wine, and this is how it happened. The monks harvested the local Maozak grape, which was known in the local language as blanketto, which means small white. And remember that because it's gonna come up again. Okay, remember white. And blanketto and mauzac.

Carmela: 03:48
Oh my god.

Joe: 03:49
Okay, remember that. They pressed the grapes and they bottled the wine in late autumn before fermentation was fully finished, which left behind residual unfermented grape sugars and live yeast inside the sealed flasks. And then as winter set in, the cold mountain weather chilled the stone cellars that they were storing the wine in, and the drop in temperature put the yeast to Betty by, went to sleep.

Carmela: 04:13
Oh, I love that. I mean, I can just visualize the whole thing.

Joe: 04:17
The yeast going to sleep. And that temporarily halted fermentation. But when spring came and the cellar temperatures rose, the sleeping yeast woke up.

Carmela: 04:26
Oh my god, it's story time, Joe.

Joe: 04:28
I know, and so it started eating the remaining sugars inside the sealed bottles. And because these flasks were sealed, the trapped carbon dioxide gas dissolved into the liquid, creating the bubbles we know and love in sparkling wine. Amazing. Yeah, that's how it happened. Wow. Now, a couple of factors helped to make this more likely to happen in the Lemu region than others. The first is at the time, many winemakers relied on wooden plugs, believe it or not, wrapped in hemp to seal bottles. So I'm just gonna tell all you guys who may be prospective winemakers, wooden plugs wrapped in hemp don't seal super well. The containers that they used often leaked that allowed air in, it created oxidation, could even spoil the wine. But in San Hilaire, they had access to cork stoppers from the nearby oak forests of Catalonia. And cork is a much better stopper, and so the cork created an airtight seal which held the pressurized gas in the container. So that was one reason why it worked better there than in other places. The second factor was the bottles. In the medieval period, glass making was done by hand, and so the quality and strength of the bottles could vary quite a bit. And fragile glass would break under the pressure created by the gas. And then often what happened is one bottle exploding would then create a chain reaction in the cellar. And so rather than using glass, some historians think that the monks used ceramic containers instead. Smart. Yeah. And by the way, the explosive nature of the wine they were making did cause them to call the wine Le Vent du Diable, which is the devil's wine.

Carmela: 06:03
Oh my gosh. Well, really, it caused a lot of havoc.

Joe: 06:06
Caused a lot of havoc. Anyway, this 16th century technique remains codified today as AOC Blanquette Method Ancestrelle. The wine is made from 100% Mauzak grapes. No secondary yeast, sugar, or tirage is added, and the wine is never disgorged to remove the old yeast sediment left behind, which they do in most bottle fermenting sparkling wines. And because the dead yeast cells remain in the bottle, the wine is naturally cloudy. It's gently sparkling and low in alcohol. It's only about 7% alcohol. Now, interestingly, Carmilla, there is a myth related to Dom Perignon. Yeah, that Dom Perignon, who's the monk often credited with inventing champagne. The story is that he visited the Saint Hilaire Abbey on a pilgrimage to Santiago de Compostela, and he brought the secret, a bottle re-fermentation from the monks in Lemoon north to Champagne.

Carmela: 06:59
And then it was like par day!

Joe: 07:01
But wine historians have since debunked this legend.

Carmela: 07:05
I like that one.

Joe: 07:06
Now he did travel to Saint Hilaire, but his work there focused on perfecting still white wines, not sparkling wines. And English records regarding intentional sparkling wine bottle production and champagne references actually came much later. So that's why people are like, that didn't, that didn't, it sounds like a good story, but it actually made it up. I don't know. In another interesting story, Carmella, Thomas Jefferson's famous wine cellar. Do you know Thomas Jefferson was famous for having a lot of wine?

Carmela: 07:35
I didn't, but I like it. Yeah.

Joe: 07:37
So his famous wine cellar was said to have been full of Blanquette des Limoux. And that 10% of his wine collection at Monticello was of that wine.

Carmela: 07:46
Oh my goodness.

Joe: 07:47
He's a big fan. I guess he was a big fan. He's not anymore. But anyway, today in Lemou, there are three different types of sparkling wine styles. There's Blanquette de Lemux Method ancestral, which we've been talking about. And it's the closest modern equivalent to what the monks made in 1531. It's still made from 100% Malzac, and the primary fermentation is partially stopped and finished directly in the bottle. Sort of feels like a pet gnat. Another is Blanquette de le Mou AOC. It was officially established in 1938 as France's first dedicated sparkling wine appellation. So before champagne, there was Blanquette des Mou. And it must be a minimum of 90% mauzac, and it can be blended with up to 10% Chardonnay and Chen and Blanc. Mabel likes that too. And it undergoes secondary bottle fermentation with at least nine months of Lee's aging before disgorgement. And then the third one is the one we're going to talk about today, Cremont des Lemux AOC, which was introduced in 1990 for an international Chardonnay forward style.

Carmela: 08:51
Oh wow.

Joe: 08:52
Now, just in case you're wondering, Mabel is whining a little more than usual. She had a little operation.

Carmela: 08:57
She had her little surgery yesterday.

Joe: 08:59
Yes, that's right. She is no longer able to get pregnant. Let's just put it that way.

Carmela: 09:04
For those of you who know, she's in menopause. She was forced into menopause. Poor girl, she's not happy about it. No, she's not.

Joe: 09:13
But Mabel, we're not going to tell you all about Cremont des Lemu just yet. We'll do that in a couple of minutes. And then we have two Cremont des Lemou wines, one a Blanc and one a Rose, to see if either or or both of them are worth your hard-earned money and maybe a spot on your Thanksgiving table this year. But first, you gotta do our shameless plug. That's right. So thank you for listening to us and supporting our show and know that we buy all the wine we taste and review every week so that we can give you real and honest reviews. And if you like what you're hearing, please subscribe to our podcast and leave us a five-star rating and review so we can grow listeners. And thanks to everybody who's done that. We also love to hear from you. Mabel loves to hear from you. And we always respond so you can follow us on Instagram and Blue Sky and TikTok at the WinePair Podcast. You can contact us on our website, thewinepairpodcast.com. Sign up for our email newsletter there. You just missed it. But if you send me a note at Joe at the winepairpodcast.com, I'll hand deliver it into your email inbox. And just let us know how you're doing. Write to us at Joe at the WinePair Podcast.com, shoot the breeze, tell us what wine should whatever.

Carmela: 10:17
We want to know about your dogs.

Joe: 10:18
If you know if your dog has gone through the surgery recently, let us know.

Carmela: 10:22
Yeah, we want to know. Yep. Just at the beginning.

Joe: 10:25
And if you have any advice, let us know because we're kind of at our wit's end. But anyway, as we do every week, we'll tell you someone we think you should recommend the wine pair podcast to, because the best way for us to grow listeners is when you tell your family and friends about us. And this week we want you to recommend us to anyone who thinks that all sparkling wine is that sweet prosecco stuff. Because while we know people love it, there's more to sparkling wine than that. There sure is. Okay, Carmela, let's find out just what the Cremont de le Mue is, shall we? Let's do it. Okay, so this is really interesting. Despite the fact that sparkling wine as we know it today started in Lemux almost 500 years ago, Cremont de le Mueux is actually a pretty new wine. And in fact, there was almost a battle to the death between over sparkling wine? Well, between Cremont de Lemux and Blanquette de Lemieux.

Carmela: 11:15
Oh my god.

Joe: 11:16
Now it sounds dramatic, but it's kind of true.

Carmela: 11:18
Okay.

Joe: 11:18
So in 1989, Lemu winemakers were in a frenzy and they found themselves divided over a crucial decision whether they should be strict and maintain the traditional Malzac heavy sparkling wine Blanquette le Mieux or relax Appalachian regulations to allow greater proportions of international grape varieties like Chardonnay. And remember how I said Mauzac and Blanquetta would come back around?

Carmela: 11:42
Yeah.

Joe: 11:43
Here it is. So the reason this even came out is because in the later part of the 20th century, a strong global demand for Chardonnay and Chen and Blanc forward sparkling wine started to grow. So the makers of sparkling wine and le Mou were torn.

Carmela: 11:58
Oh my.

Joe: 11:59
Some wanted to strictly preserve the historic Blanquette de Lemux, others wanted to incorporate higher proportions of Chardonnay and Chen and Blanc to create the more modern and crisp sparkling styles that people were starting to prefer. So to resolve this debate without killing the historic heritage of Malzac, French authorities officially created the Cremont de le Mue AOC on August 21st, 1990. Now what's funny is that the initial plan was to give the winemakers until the end of 1994.

Carmela: 12:28
Oh wow.

Joe: 12:29
So just less than four years. It was three and a half years to decide which appellation would survive.

Carmela: 12:35
Oh my goodness.

Joe: 12:36
So the French government sent it up and said, hey, we'll let we'll let this go, but in three and a half years, you guys gotta choose one.

Carmela: 12:41
Oh my. What did they do in the meantime?

Joe: 12:43
They just made wine. They just made wine and drank like fish. Oh my god. The expectation, Carmelo, was that Cremont would eventually replace Blanquette. So they kind of they kind of had stacked the deck. But the winemakers weren't willing to give up their historic Blanquette. So they just kept making both. And eventually the French government had to change the law to allow both appellations to coexist. Hooray! Hooray, hooray. Woohoo! Yeah. So we can all live together even if we're different, right? See, right. That is what makes the world go round. Right. You can be red in a blue state or blue in a red state. It's fine.

Carmela: 13:19
It doesn't really matter. We're all just people. Right. Humans.

Joe: 13:23
Or sparkling wine. Right. Now you might be wondering whether the winemakers who started making Cremant de la Mue were different from the ones making Blanquette de la Mue. Better, different, different, but better. But the answer is not really, Carmela. Oh. Many of the same winemakers who had been making Blanquette simply started making Cremant as well, which I think is probably one of the reasons why they both survived. In fact, one of the biggest producers, a cooperative called Sieu de Auc, I don't know if I'm saying that right, which was founded in 1946 specifically to make Blanquette de Lemieux, today makes both. And they're not alone. Some of the oldest family wineries in Lemou also produce both styles. So while there was some disagreement about the direction sparkling wine should take in Lemu, the creation of Cremant didn't divide winemakers into two competing groups. Again, they weren't red or blue. It simply gave them another kind of sparkling wine they could make. And so both could live in harmony. And don't we just want to live in harmony?

Carmela: 14:18
I mean, don't we?

Joe: 14:19
Can't we just live in harmony?

Carmela: 14:20
Can we all just get along?

Joe: 14:22
I know. So you may wonder what kind of reputation Cremant Delemie has today.

Carmela: 14:26
I do.

Joe: 14:27
Yeah, so it's often called one of the best kept secrets in French sparkling wine. Wine experts and smolliers consider it an awesome alternative to champagne because it's made in the same way champagne is, but it costs a fraction of the price. Now, this is true for most Cremant, but it's not just champagne that it compares favorably to. Cremant de la Mueux also holds its own against the other popular sparkling wines like Spanish kava and other French Cremant, especially when it comes to quality for the price. And you can find some really good bottles for between $15 and $30. Nice. So it's a pretty fantastic value. And again, a great option maybe for Thanksgiving. We'll find that out today. Love it. Now, compared to other Cremant wines, it's considered fruity and acidic. Okay. And in fact, in 2021, Decanter Magazine published a guide on tasting and they tasted 120 Cremant. I wish I was at that tasting. Wow. 120 Cremant from across France, including.

Carmela: 15:23
I hope not all in one night.

Joe: 15:24
No, they did them all at this like within an hour. Wow. They had an hour to do all 120. Oh my god. It's like two, you know, one every 30 seconds.

Carmela: 15:31
But they use it, just little, I don't get it.

Joe: 15:33
They just chugged. They chugged. Anyway, they had eight from the mousse, 68 from Bourgogne. That's burgundy, 27 from all sauce, and 11 from Loire. And here's what they found Lemou and Loire are generally fruitier with crisp apple flavors and a lot of acidity. Burgogna is more rich and yeasty and buttery and has pastry-like flavors. And all sauce is a little more neutral. And so you get a lot more flavors from things like Lee's aging to stand out. Pretty different. They're very different. Now, the particularly interesting observation was that Lemou's use of Mauzac can introduce tropical fruit characteristics, and that distinguished it from Loire. But Carmelo, here's another funny thing about it being a best kept secret, because the secret may be getting out. In 2025, about 8 million bottles of Cremant de Lemou were sold, with more than half exported outside of France. And sales have nearly doubled over the past decade. And that puts it in fifth place among the eight French Cremant regions. But when you compare it to Alsace, which sold more than 40 million bottles, and Loire, which sold more than 31 million bottles, it's still a relatively small player, but it's growing. And so I am super excited to try this wine because we love sparkling wine, we love Cremant, and we love crisp, acidic wines. And so given the profile I just mentioned, I think it might be right up our eye.

Carmela: 16:55
I think so. We might have a winner.

Joe: 16:57
We might have a winner. So I think on that note, we should learn a little bit more about the specific wines we're drinking today. What do you say? Okay. All right. As usual, the wines we have chosen for this episode are under $25. And they should be relatively easy to find because I bought them both at wine.com. Now, in general, Cremant is getting much easier to find if you go to a good wine shop or a store with a good wine selection. It'll be harder to find Cremant de la Mou, but if you find a store with a good French or sparkling wine selection, you shouldn't have a problem. And again, just go to your local wine shop, ask them to help you, and they will be happy to oblige. Of course. Now the first sparkling wine we're gonna drink tonight is the Vanderpump, which doesn't sound terribly French. There is a TV show called Vanderpump. You're right, you're right, but I don't think it's related to the I wondered. I didn't think so.

Carmela: 17:42
I'm just do you think that maybe the TV show was based off of the wine?

Joe: 17:46
Could have been. Could have been. I don't know.

Carmela: 17:48
I don't know. I can't wait to see this label.

Joe: 17:50
Me neither. Actually, I've already seen it. It's the Vanderpump Cremant des Mue Brute. As with most sparkling wines, it has no vintage. And remember, Brute means dry and sparkling wine, meaning it generally has very little to no residual sugar left. It got a 93 rating from the tasting panel, and it's made from 70% Chardonnay, 20% Chenin Blanc, and 10% Malzac. So it has some of that Malzak in it, which will be kind of fun. There's very little information I could find out about this wine. It didn't have a text sheet, and the website just says this made in the traditional method with 24 months aging on the lees.

Carmela: 18:25
Oh wow, wow. That's all they said. A little something.

Joe: 18:27
Well, I had to do a little digging.

Carmela: 18:29
Okay. I dug around.

Joe: 18:31
According to a review in the tasting panel, the wine comes from Maison Entec, which is a historic sparkling wine producer in Lemoux with a wine-making history dating back six generations, and today the winery is led by Francois Entec d'Azel, a descendant of the original Entec family. So while Vanderpump is the name on the bottle, there is a legitimate, well-established French sparkling wine producer behind it that is not Vanderpump.

Carmela: 18:56
Weird.

Joe: 18:57
Weird. It is weird. Assuming the information is correct, Maison Entec does make its own Cremant de le Mue called Couvet Francois as well, with exactly the same blend of grapes. So now, Carmela, this is a stretch. I'm making some assumptions, but I'm going to include what EnTech says about their winemaking techniques, and then assume that at least some of them transfer over to this Vanderpump wine. Entech hand harvests its grapes, they gently press them, they ferment the varieties at low temperatures, blend the wines before the second fermentation. And again, we can't confirm that Vanderpump follows exactly the same process or that it's the same wine with a different label, but it's better than what the winery website had to say. So let's move on to our second wine. The second wine we're going to drink is the Ferle Fête Cremont des Brute Rose. Okay. And this wine got a 92 from the tasting panel and a 91 from Wilfrid Wong, who's the wine critic. They use on wine.com. It's a lot of W's. The wine is made from 65% Chardonnay, 20% Chenon Blanc, and 15% Pinot Noir. So it's kind of interesting that it's only 15% Pinot Noir because it's a rose because that's where it's going to get its color from. But no Mauzac at all.

Carmela: 20:09
Okay.

Joe: 20:10
So that's interesting. And again, there is very little I could find out about this wine in terms of tech sheets or anything like that. On wine.com, the winery notes are that the wine is sustainably hand-harvest, vegan-friendly, gluten-free, and low in sugar.

Carmela: 20:24
Oh.

Joe: 20:24
But that wasn't enough for me, so I did some digging on this one.

Carmela: 20:27
Boy, this guy, the lifelong learner.

Joe: 20:30
Now, thank you. Fair La Fette was launched in 2015, so it's a pretty new brand and acquired in 2018 by an American company called First Growth Brands. Which is ironic. I don't know. It sounds a bit funny. The company works with French grape-growing families in Lemue, some of whom have been growing grapes for eight generations. These families also own the winemaking facilities where the wine's produced, and first growth brands brought in an American winemaker named Alex Cos, who previously worked on the popular Mark West Pinot Noir brand, to help oversee production. So while Fair La Fette is an American-owned brand, the wine is made in France.

Carmela: 21:08
Nice.

Joe: 21:08
The grapes are reportedly hand-harvested and whole cluster pressed, and the wine is made using the traditional method with secondary fermentation happening in the bottle, as we would expect, and it spends at least 15 months aging on the lees. So both of these wines age on the lees. Again, the lees are the leftover yeast from the winemaking process. That's very common in sparkling wine. It gives it kind of that bready and yeasty kind of flavor. The Pinot Noir, again, is what gives the wine its pink color. And interestingly, the company says the entire winemaking process takes approximately two years from start to finish. Sparkling wine is a, you know, like you have to kind of commit. Yeah, you gotta be committed. So look, here's the deal, Carmela. I'm gonna be open minded, but I feel like we got two wines that may be a little bit more about the brand on the bottle than the wine itself, because they're brand names, but they're having other people make the wine. Right. So we'll we'll see. We're gonna give them a fair shot.

Carmela: 22:01
Did you know that before you bought the wine?

Joe: 22:03
Actually, I did not.

Carmela: 22:04
Okay.

Joe: 22:04
I did not. Although I was suspicious about the name Vanderpump, but you know, I just bought it.

Carmela: 22:08
You didn't know about the TV show.

unknown: 22:09
I did.

Carmela: 22:10
Or you did. I did. Have you seen it? I I have not. I have seen an episode.

Speaker 1: 22:15
And what did you think?

Carmela: 22:16
And it was a one and done for me.

Speaker 1: 22:18
Oh, see, it wasn't that good. I hope the wine is better than that.

Carmela: 22:20
I'm not saying, I'm just saying.

Speaker 1: 22:22
I'm not here to yuck your yum if you like Vanderpump rules or whatever it is.

Carmela: 22:25
Look, I watched it with one of our kids, and you know, it was entertaining. It's just I didn't think you and I'd watch it.

Joe: 22:32
Here's the deal. We keep asking you guys questions. If you think Carmela missed it on the Vanderpump, let us know.

Carmela: 22:37
Yeah, like if you're totally down and you've watched it all, let me know. I might reinvest some time in it.

Joe: 22:42
She'll do that for you.

Carmela: 22:44
Yeah. Not for everybody, but for you. She'll do it. I will.

Joe: 22:48
Okay, but these wines, we're gonna give them a fair shot, don't you think, Carmilla? Yeah, for sure. Even if you don't like Vanderpump, like move the TV show.

Carmela: 22:54
Right, and it wasn't like I didn't like it. Anyway, we don't need to go on and on. But yeah, we're definitely gonna give it a good shot here.

Joe: 23:00
And then when we do the tasting, we're gonna also say, is this Thanksgiving table worthy or not? Okay. We're gonna do that. Okay, so with that, we're gonna get to drinking. If you have a Cremont, if you have a Cremont de le Mue, if you have any sparkling wine, if you have any wine at all, pop it open, drink along with us, and we'll be right back. Okay, we are back and we're ready to try our first wine. This is the Vanderpump Cremont de le Mue Brute. It's from Le Mue France. It's non-vintage, $24.99 at wine.com, 12% alcohol, 70% Chardonnay, 20% Chenon Blanc, 21% Mauzac, a 93 from the tasting panel. But Carmela, let's talk about the you wanted to talk about the bottle. What do you think about the bottom?

Carmela: 23:44
Well, I just don't even know because I'm not I'm looking at the writing of Vanderpomp. I'm wondering if that looks like the TV show now. What came first, the TV show or the wine?

Joe: 23:53
I think I again I don't think they're related, but maybe if somebody knows, let us know. Yeah.

Carmela: 23:57
I mean it's yeah, it's trying to be like a special, special occasion wine.

Joe: 24:02
Yeah, it's kind of dark, it's kind of like formal. It looks a little formal. Yeah. Dark, it's black and gold and I mean you can have this whenever you want.

Carmela: 24:09
Whenever. But it's definitely something if according to the bottle, I think it's kind of for a special occasion.

Joe: 24:15
It would look nice on a Thanksgiving table. Yeah. Look, we don't know about the taste yet, but the look.

Carmela: 24:19
Yes.

Joe: 24:19
What about the color? Dark. Really?

Carmela: 24:22
Mine is so dark. Why is mine? Why does mine look darker?

Joe: 24:25
Because I put a little poison in it. You know what I don't know. It's I mean it's yellow. It's it's but yours almost is like green, like or green. Like I think it's got kind of green.

Carmela: 24:34
Look at it, it's almost like the label bonk.

Joe: 24:36
It is gold. You're right. Comparing it to the label, it is gold. Yeah, that's good. Okay, well, let's smell it and see what we're smelling.

Carmela: 24:43
Yeast.

Joe: 24:44
Yeah, it's yeasty. Very yeasty. I'm getting citrus, maybe a little grapefruit.

Carmela: 24:49
Okay, I like that. Grapefruit is a good call. I can I can definitely smell that. What about like even like a little cantaloupe? Okay, melon. No, a little melon. Yeah, just a little hint.

Joe: 25:00
There's something a little um astringent or band-aid on it, a little bit.

Carmela: 25:05
Yeah, a little artificially in some form. I don't know why, but that doesn't mean anything bad. It just has an interesting smell.

Joe: 25:13
I'm trying to see if I'm getting any other fruits, like other than like I'm not, I don't feel like I'm getting like a lot of apple or anything on it. Are you?

Carmela: 25:23
I I can't really tell. A hint of apple, like a sparkling cider apple.

Joe: 25:28
Yeah.

Carmela: 25:28
You know, and that maybe because of the bubbles and everything. Maybe a hint of that too.

Joe: 25:32
Yeah, I think so. By the way, as we mentioned, we mentioned this in the last Cremont episode as well. We're not doing this in those flutes. We're just using regular wine glasses. Just use a regular wine glass. Right.

Carmela: 25:42
Do what you want. But you know, if you don't have them, don't think that this is out. Like you can't, like sparkling is out. I don't have the right accessory for it.

Joe: 25:49
That's right. It's fine in the right vessel. That vessel is a good word.

Carmela: 25:53
I think you're just fine in any glass.

Joe: 25:55
We think you're fine no matter what.

Carmela: 25:57
Do it from the bottle.

Joe: 25:58
Just drink it straight from the bottle.

Carmela: 26:00
Yeah. The flagon.

Joe: 26:01
The flagon. That's right. Okay, uh, let's taste it and see what we think.

Carmela: 26:06
Ooh.

Joe: 26:06
It's bitter at the end.

Carmela: 26:08
It's almost a little bit like an apparol spritz. Orange. A little bit of orangey in it.

Joe: 26:14
Orangy. Mm-hmm. It is. It's very you're right. It's very there is a lot of orange. Even I'm I'm getting a grapefruit bitterness on it.

Carmela: 26:23
Okay.

Joe: 26:23
Don't you think like um pink grapefruit kind of bitterness on the end?

Carmela: 26:26
Yeah, definitely.

Joe: 26:27
It's citrus fruit, but it's not a lot of lemon.

Carmela: 26:31
No, it's more like lemon is uh, I feel like with citrus is a little bit like lighter, like zesty and zippy. Brighter. Yeah, exactly. Those other like even orange, but definitely grapefruit is so much more bitter, yeah, and a little bit flatter or something. Yeah, I don't know if that makes sense.

Joe: 26:48
No, it totally makes sense. Yeah, to me, this isn't like it's um it's nice, it's effervescent, it's got good mouthfeel, it's got the mousse, like it kind of fills up your mouth. So from that, like good bubbles, like good sparkliness. It doesn't have a ton of flavor.

Carmela: 27:03
No, it's not super complex, right?

Joe: 27:05
I would even say you kind of mentioned this, I think last week, where the beginning, middle, and end is a little bit one note until you get to the bitterness at the end.

Carmela: 27:12
I would say so.

Joe: 27:13
It's not a ton going, it's not bad. It's it's nice. It's just I don't think it's a head turner.

Carmela: 27:18
Whoa, not fine. It's not fine, you know.

Joe: 27:22
Okay. What food would you pair with this Vanderpump Cremant de Lemieux?

Carmela: 27:26
Well, I'm kind of thinking about like uh a cocktail hour type of stuff, like more like appetizers, more like um cheese boards. I could definitely do like stinky cheese with this.

Joe: 27:37
Yes.

Carmela: 27:38
Um, cheese.

Joe: 27:40
Yeah, sorry, you were kind of getting a little Aperol on it. And so maybe that's why you're thinking about before dinner as well.

Carmela: 27:46
Yeah, I perhaps. I don't know. I'm just kind of I guess I'm imagining having this earlier on. You know, a lot of people want to have a sparkling at the end of the meal or like it's a toast during the you know dinner. I don't know.

Joe: 27:58
Would you put Aperol in this or compariance? Or do you think it would be too much? Or would it bring out the bit, you know, like night nicely blended?

Carmela: 28:05
I think it would be a little richer, it would make it actually make it a little richer. I mean, some people don't Little Richard?

Joe: 28:11
No, definitely, yeah.

Carmela: 28:14
Anyone else know him out there? Yeah, anyway. Um, I mean you definitely could. I mean, proseco's sweet, and that's how you usually make an Apirol spritz, but this is dry.

Joe: 28:23
This is nice and dry.

Carmela: 28:25
Yeah. So you're gonna get a little more bitterness out of that Aperol. It kind of depends on what you're looking for. Yeah, but I would.

Joe: 28:31
Yeah. I think this is a food wine because it's so neutral and like not overpowering. I think it's actually a really good food wine. And I'm I'm with you with the charcuterie in that, but I am thinking Thanksgiving dinner. I think it would go great.

Carmela: 28:45
Turkey would be really nice with it.

Joe: 28:46
Yeah, and I think it could hold up to cranberries, and I think it could hold up to gravy, and I think it could hold up to a lot of different foods for dressing.

Carmela: 28:55
What do you guys say?

Joe: 28:56
What do you call it? Do you do mac and cheese? Do you do a vegan mac and cheese like our son does? You know, like come on, it's really good. But would you do it? Do you do it? Do you have that crazy broccoli and bacon and whatever with mayonnaise salad?

Carmela: 29:09
I've never made it in my life, but it is so good on Thanksgiving.

Joe: 29:12
It's hard, man. This wine would go great. So actually, I would just say, I know you're saying to cocktail it, and I would be fine with that.

Carmela: 29:19
Well, either way, that's just what came to mind for me at first.

Joe: 29:22
Yeah, no, I all I'm saying is I actually think this wine would sing with dinner. With Mabel.

Carmela: 29:29
Sing with Mabel.

Joe: 29:30
I think it might be a little bit unimpressive if you just drank it on its own, but I think with dinner, it'd be great.

Carmela: 29:36
I think you you're probably right. Like having a glass of this, you wouldn't be like, oh wow, somebody spent a lot of money on this.

Joe: 29:41
Yeah, but yeah, no, but I think I think if you had it with your with your meal, I think it would be really good. And I again, I think it's got a good basic flavoring to it that it would go with a lot of stuff.

Carmela: 29:52
I get it, I agree.

Joe: 29:53
How about peas and tomato sauce like my mom used to have during Thanksgiving?

Carmela: 29:57
I love your mom so much, and there's not one thing that I ever she ever made that I didn't like, but she had to make that.

Joe: 30:03
And it was horrible. It was one thing that wasn't very good.

Carmela: 30:05
But it was tradition.

Joe: 30:06
It was so what do you think? Thanksgiving worthy for sure. Yeah, I think it would look pretty, I think it would go well with the meal. Okay, we're gonna rate this wine as a reminder on our rating scale. We rate on a scale of one to ten, we don't give half point seven and above means we'd buy it four and below, means we're gonna pour it down the sink. And a five or six means we're gonna drink it and finish it, but we're definitely not going to buy it. So, Carmela, what rating are you gonna give this wine?

Carmela: 30:28
Well, it's tough because part of me is like, oh yeah, I'd give it a seven, I'd buy it. But am I gonna buy it for Thanksgiving dinner? I don't know. I mean, you can. I don't want to take that back because I just said that. Yeah, but no, I mean I'm just saying it's definitely.

Joe: 30:43
That's sometimes how I feel when she's judging me.

Carmela: 30:45
Oh boy. Do I judge you? I don't think so. Should I take him back? Should I keep him for Thanksgiving? I don't know. Is he Thanksgiving worthy?

Joe: 30:54
You're holding everybody in suspense.

Carmela: 30:56
Anyway, okay, I'm gonna give it. I'm gonna give it a seven. I'm gonna I'm it's a little bit of a reluctant seven.

Joe: 31:02
It's so it's like we've been married for a long time and done this podcast for five years, but I'm doing the same thing. Really?

Carmela: 31:08
A reluctant seven?

Joe: 31:09
A reluctant seven. I was really like when we first started tasting, I'm like, it's a six. It's definitely a six. Yeah. But then I was like, with dinner, it'd be great. And the bottle looks pretty. Oh, and it's like it's not bad in any way. No, it's just not like crushing, it's not like, oh man, I gotta have more.

Carmela: 31:27
And maybe do you do you need that for Thanksgiving? I'm not sure, especially if you're having a big crew like we are. I agree. Do we need to spend too much money on?

Joe: 31:36
I agree. And this is a big deal, you guys. We're just gonna let you know for the first time in um lots of years. In my whole life. We're not gonna say how many years, but it's more than you might think, or maybe less than you might think. We are actually hosting Thanksgiving this year. We've we wrestled it away from Carmela's parents.

Carmela: 31:52
It sounds crazy because I mean we've hosted Thanksgiving, but we used to do two. We used to have two Thanksgivings, and so with Joe's family, we would host sometimes when his mom got older.

Joe: 32:02
This is a bigger crew.

Carmela: 32:03
This is a little bit of a bigger crew. How big's your Thanksgiving dinner?

Joe: 32:06
We want to know. Let us know. Will you just let us know? But it's a big deal. The biggest deal is not that we're doing Thanksgiving dinner, it's that your mom gave it up. I know. That's the biggest deal.

Carmela: 32:15
Unfortunately, she had a disclaimer after she gave it up, and she was like, Well, you can host this year. I mean, what family is like arm wrestling each other to to host Thanksgiving? I don't know.

Joe: 32:26
But it's a big deal. It's a big deal, and I would serve it. I would serve it.

Carmela: 32:29
We might have this then. This is on the chopping block.

Joe: 32:32
Well, chopping block means you're not gonna have it.

Carmela: 32:34
I think that it's like you're putting it up there and deciding whether or not like you haven't chopped it yet. I that was my interpretation. You're on the chopping block. You might get your head chopped off. Wait, maybe not. You're on the chopping. That means if you're on, okay. I know.

Joe: 32:49
You're pretty much gonna get your head cut off if you're on the chopping block. But there is there is an outside chance that the king would say, stop.

Carmela: 32:56
Do not be chopping a joke.

Joe: 32:58
I guess it'd be an I I think I'd probably die of a heart attack. Okay, anyway, we're gonna take a break and we're gonna try our second wine.

Carmela: 33:09
Okay.

Joe: 33:13
Okay, we're back and we're ready to try our next wine. This is the Fet Le Fet Cremant de Lemieux Brute Rose. Le Mieux, if you haven't figured it out by now, is spelled L-I-M-O-U-X. It's great, looks cool. It's from Le Mieux France. It's non-vintage. It was $25.97. So I guess I lied a little. It's $25.97. It's in the $25 range. We got it at wine.com, 12% alcohol, 65% Chardonnay, 20% Chenon Blanc, 15% Pinot Noir. Tasting panel gave it a 92. But Carmela, what do you think of this bottle? And I I will say it had a really nice pink foil that just kind of came off. So I didn't, I you didn't get to see it.

Carmela: 33:52
Oh, okay. I was gonna say, I actually like this one better.

Joe: 33:54
Okay, why?

Carmela: 33:55
I don't know. There's nothing, you know what? I actually don't really love the foil on top. Oh, you really okay. So I kind of like this is a little simpler. I mean, it's kind of fancy label, but um I don't know. It just it's just talk about the label a little bit. Well, it's sort of I don't know if that's it looks exactly like the wine. The color looks pink. Yeah, yeah, but like it actually matches the wine.

Joe: 34:17
Amazing how they did that. Would it have a place on the Thanksgiving table?

Carmela: 34:20
For sure. It looks festive. It looks festive, but it's also like um, you know, fancy enough. I mean, not that you have to have a fancy Thanksgiving dinner, but no, this would look very nice. What do you think?

Joe: 34:30
Yeah, yeah, and the pink is kind of fun too. Let's talk about the color of the wine because you're exactly right.

Carmela: 34:35
It is super pink. It is pink. I mean, there's a there's a touch of orange kind of mixed in, kind of corally, but pink.

Joe: 34:42
Yeah, coral pink. I uh yeah, I I don't know how else to say it. It's pink.

Carmela: 34:46
Yeah.

Joe: 34:46
Okay, well let's smell it and see what we think. Okay. It's got some like crunchy red fruit on it. I feel like it's got a little cranberry or something, or raspberry.

Carmela: 34:56
Yeah, raspberry. I can definitely get behind that.

Joe: 34:59
A little citrus. I think I got a little citrus on there. I don't smell as much yeast.

Carmela: 35:04
Yeast, no, I don't either. It's a little fresher, a little fruitier.

Joe: 35:07
Yeah.

Carmela: 35:08
Um, so even the touch of sweetness, you know.

Joe: 35:10
For sure. Yeah, I I think that fruitiness, that freshness, fruitiness for sure. It's nice. Like it's it's not quite as bubbly looking as the last one, but it's pretty. It's pretty in the glass. I think it would look pretty on a table.

Carmela: 35:22
Yeah, it's kind of interesting because it a lot of times I feel like sparklings just have that yeasty brioche. This is just doesn't happen. No, this is right. This is a little more fresh air.

Joe: 35:32
Mm-hmm. I agree. Yeah.

Carmela: 35:34
Crisp. Yeah. Yeah.

Joe: 35:35
Uh okay, well, let's uh taste it and see what we think.

Carmela: 35:38
Okay. It's like orange juice. I don't know why.

Joe: 35:42
You think so, huh? I was thinking more like I'm getting like a ra like a fruit juice, but like a raspberry juice. Well, actually, cranberry juice, maybe, but like a capri sun. I'm getting a capricent. Yeah. Actually, you know what it reminds me of? A Bartles and James wine cooler.

Carmela: 35:56
It it's it actually kind of looks like some of them too. Some of them are had a little bit of flavor in it, right? It's like a wine cooler. Oh gosh.

Joe: 36:04
We are children of the 80s.

Carmela: 36:05
Right.

Joe: 36:06
And we remember Bartles and James and uh California when we were adults. When we were adults, we were not in high school drinking that.

Carmela: 36:15
Adults in the 80s, were we? Were you an adult in the 80s?

Joe: 36:17
I turned 18 in the 80s for sure.

Carmela: 36:20
Oh, full-fledged adult.

Joe: 36:23
Come on. Whoa, whoa, okay. Um California Cooler. That was the one I was thinking of. California Cooler. But that was a citrusy one. Bartles and James was kind of the fancy one because it was like a dollar a bottle.

Carmela: 36:35
What? Were they really that inexpensive? I think that's a good thing.

Joe: 36:38
Well, at the time they weren't cheap. Right. You you just got them. Anyway, what else are you tasting on this?

Carmela: 36:44
Well, I mean, I guess, yeah, I am I am a Capri Sun, I kind of like that. It does even it almost tastes kind of cocktail-y, like, like we've talked about before, like uh um like a cranberry vodka.

Joe: 36:54
Yeah, yeah.

Carmela: 36:55
Or like nobody knows what this drink is, but like a grape nihai.

Joe: 36:58
We talked about that before. Nobody can find it.

Carmela: 37:01
I know. We did. We had the whole thing.

Joe: 37:03
You think it's got a little grape in it.

Carmela: 37:04
I don't know if it's grape or not, but it just has a maybe it's more cranberry. I think you're right with the cranberry.

Joe: 37:10
I'm even thinking a little bit like you know, like a crappy Capri Sun lemonade, like a pink lemonade. It might have a little bit of pink lemonade on it. Maybe because it's pink, I'm thinking about that. Maybe or a strawberry lemonade, like some sort of because it is citrusy.

Carmela: 37:23
It is, I think so too. That's where the orange is coming in for me for some reason.

Joe: 37:28
Yeah. Acid-y, yeah, I'm with you. Um, what food would you pair with this fair le fet?

Carmela: 37:34
Well, I think a lot of the same things. I think this could be on the Thanksgiving table and a lot of those same dishes. It would do well with stuffing, um, mashed potatoes. I agree. I think it would be great with salty food too. Ooh. I think so too. Of fish and chips. I'm not thinking that's really thanks for.

Joe: 37:52
Fried turkey.

Carmela: 37:53
A fried turkey? Should we fry the turkey this year? No.

Joe: 37:56
Hell no, we're not frying no turkey.

Carmela: 37:58
No, too much trouble with that.

Joe: 38:00
We'd burn the house, I'd burn the house down.

Carmela: 38:02
No, we don't need that.

Joe: 38:03
But I think you're right, like a cross-section of food, uh, stuffing, gravy, mashed potatoes, blah, blah, blah. Yes. It'd go well. Turkey with the turkey. You're not a big turkey fan.

Carmela: 38:12
I don't know.

Joe: 38:13
I mean I love it.

Carmela: 38:14
I know you do. Are you one of those people? Oh, God.

Joe: 38:18
After I we're really being protective about our age and how long we've been married in this episode. No. But she has no idea what I like. But go ahead.

Carmela: 38:26
No, it's not true. Sometimes I'm mistaken what he likes for what my dad likes, but you know, that's we were the first man in your life, okay? Oh, God. Well, you let's go ahead. Anyway, um, I just am trying to think. I'm imagining some people really like that whole idea of like piling everything on top of each other and swirling it all together, making one big and then just no, that's great. I didn't think you were that way. I'm kind of asking the people out and listening.

Joe: 38:51
Let us know. But I do like things separate or do you know what I do like I like to take a little bit, like a bite of turkey and put a little mashed potato and gravy on it. That's good. That's good. Do you do the whole next day, you know, like we haven't been married and you don't know.

Carmela: 39:07
I'm sort of asking out there too.

Joe: 39:09
Yeah, let us know. Do you make turkey pot pie? We used to do that. We don't do it anymore. It was really good. Okay. Anyway, let's rate this wine. What would you rate it?

Carmela: 39:17
I'm still kind of stuck like the last time. I'm gonna actually give it a six. Oh, okay. What are you giving it?

Joe: 39:23
I'm a seven.

Carmela: 39:24
Oh, good.

Joe: 39:25
Okay. I'm a seven. I'm enjoying it. I would drink it. I think it would go great with Thanksgiving dinner. I like sparkling wine. I like rose sparkling wines. I don't know. I like it. It's not like, again, these aren't neither of these wines are like, oh my god, wow, go out and buy them. Go, you know, go crazy. Yeah, it's the greatest I've ever had. But I I'm happy with it. Yeah. I would buy it. I would buy it. I would buy it, and I think if you buy it, I will drink it.

Carmela: 39:48
You will.

Joe: 39:49
Which of these? This should be a dumb question, but it's I'm still gonna ask it. Uh, which of these are you finishing tonight?

Carmela: 39:54
I'll take the Vander Pump for the win tonight. But up the jam.

Joe: 39:59
Yeah, all right. I think I'm gonna go, I could go with either one. So just to even things out, I'm gonna go with this one.

Carmela: 40:05
Okay.

Joe: 40:05
Make you feel better.

Carmela: 40:06
Love it.

Joe: 40:06
Okay, Carmella. Let's see if we nail the taste profiles expected from Command de Lemus. The flavors in aromas, crisp, citrus like lemon zest or grapefruit, green apple peach, and white flowers with subtle elderflower accent. I don't know what an elder flower is. With Lee's aging. It's an old flower. That's good. I like that. Okay. Toasted brioche, fresh biscuit, buttercream, toasted almond and hazelnut. We got a little bit on the first one, but I don't think we were getting a lot of that. Crisp, refreshing acidity, soft creamy mousse. I think on the first one there was more of a creamy mousse. And a clean whetstone mineral finish. And then the rose will have notes of crushed raspberries, strawberries, and red apple.

Carmela: 40:48
Oh.

Joe: 40:49
That's interesting.

Carmela: 40:50
Yeah.

Joe: 40:50
Okay, the Vanderpump, the winery says the nose reveals notes of green apple and candied lemon, while the palette offers crisp acidity and balanced effervescence. And tasting panel said a perfume of vanilla custard and tangerine. You were getting more orange on the second one.

Carmela: 41:07
I got orange on the first one, actually. Did you? Okay.

Joe: 41:10
Is accompanied by the aroma of bread dough, and the bubbles are vivacious. They were vivaceous, revealing notes of lemon drop and white flowers. Okay. The Fair La Fette, the winery says aromas of white cherry and just ripened wild strawberries. Okay. Yeah, I think so. Fresh citrus acidity is balanced by minerality in a briochean shortcake finish. I kind of like shortcake. That's kind of good. Right. The uh wine Wilfred Wong said this wine exhibits attractive aromas and flavors of ripe strawberries and spicy earth. Oh, it do have a little spice on it. I think tasting panel. Mingle scents of baguette, strawberry. They're getting a lot of strawberry, not as much raspberry.

Carmela: 41:48
No, no orange in that one.

Joe: 41:49
Nope. Salty lime and red apple with crisp acidity and flavors of more strawberry and ruby grapefruit. Okay, so we got the pink grapefruit, which lead to touches of grassy herb and white pepper.

Carmela: 42:00
Nice. Yeah, well, that's a lot for what I was tasting.

Joe: 42:04
Yeah, I agree. Okay, Carmela, what's the verdict on Cremon de Lemux?

Carmela: 42:09
Oh, I like it. I mean, I again, I like it. It's not like blowing me out of the water, but um you know what we've had a lot of good sparkling wine, so yeah, it's tough.

Joe: 42:18
And you know, I just uh uh this is on me. This is on me. I kind of feel like the wines I bought were, you know, kind of these brand wines and maybe not the best expressions of Cremont de l'Emu. So I I'm wondering if we got maybe a more I you know, these are authentic, but if there was maybe more of a like a grower Cremant, maybe it'd be a little different, maybe a little bit higher quality or something. I mean, they were good, and I would definitely, I mean, I had them both as buys, I'd drink them. I just wasn't, I like you said, I wasn't like blown out of the water. But I like him. Yeah. All right, now it's time to head over to our news desk so that we can cover our wine in the news this week. Wine in the news this week. Our wine in the news this week comes from Julianne Codemer, writing for Bay City News. And the article is called Surprise 400 Pound Tasters. Sample Redwood Valley Vineyard Grapes. People? Hmm. By the way, links to this article and all the articles we use for research in our episodes are on our show notes. As always, go to our website, look for the show, click on it, you can find all the links. But anyway, the story takes place, Carmela. It's a great question. The story takes place at the Barra of Mendocino Winery in Redwood Valley, California, where the family's home vineyard was first planted back in 1955. Martha Barra and her late husband Charlie were some of the early champions of organic farming in the county, and they have farmed that way for about 50 years. But that's not the story. Here's the story: about two weeks before harvest started in August, two herds of Thule elk, about 30 animals, 30 animals in all, wandered. Into the vineyard. And you might be wondering what the hell a Thule elk is, but it's kind of elk that only lives in California. And according to the headline, each one weighs about 400 pounds.

Carmela: 44:10
Holy cow. Okay, that makes better sense.

Joe: 44:13
I'll just say if you have never seen an elk up close and I almost ran into one, it would have killed me if I had ran into it. They are huge. Yeah. They're huge. Frightening. So it turns out the elks were no dummies. They got into the vineyard. They went straight for the ripe Pinot Blanc and Pinot Noir grapes. They also ate the tender new growth on some young Pinot Noir vines.

Carmela: 44:35
They weren't skimping.

Joe: 44:36
No, the winery had just planted them, and that means that those vines will now take at least an extra year to mature. Thank you, Elk. Wow. The baras tried just about everything to get rid of them, including motion-activated lights, fencing, electric fencing, and even herding them with ATVs. None of it worked, and the elk stayed for most of the harvest, but they weren't really helping out.

Carmela: 44:56
I mean, you're not going to really approach the elk.

Joe: 44:57
No, you're not going to be like, hey, buddy, can you go?

Carmela: 44:59
Excuse me. And you can't like call the cops. I mean, what do you do?

Joe: 45:02
Well, the only thing, good segue, the only thing that finally drove them off was when the winery started harvesting with machines at night, which probably freaked them out. Yeah. And the elk disappeared just two days before harvesting.

Carmela: 45:14
They're probably just kicking themselves. God, why didn't we just run those earlier?

Joe: 45:18
Exactly. Martha Barra thinks the elk came precisely because of the organic farming.

unknown: 45:23
Huh.

Joe: 45:24
She said they know a good thing. Yeah, so she said something to the effect of that 50 years of farming organically may have attracted wildlife.

Carmela: 45:31
They've been watching.

Joe: 45:32
Yeah. And she said the harvest still turned out well with very good quality fruit, even after the elk got to them. Okay. So that's good. But Carmelo, what do you think? Because we've been having some wildlife sightings of our own. Ooh.

Carmela: 45:44
Okay, don't bring it up.

Joe: 45:45
Okay, people, we live in Seattle. It is a major city. Like we're it's not uh we don't live in the woods, we live in the city. We have a lot of trees. Yes, but in the last week, a deer literally crossed a busy street in our city right in front of me, like five blocks from our house, and Carmela almost got well.

Carmela: 46:06
I was almost I almost came, you know, face to face with a coyote.

Joe: 46:10
People, this is in the city of Seattle.

Carmela: 46:12
Yeah, I had to basically turn around and go the other direction, or I would have possibly had to have like a moment with this coyote.

Joe: 46:20
Yeah, she had her mace ready to go and everything.

Carmela: 46:22
Yeah, because the day before I saw one during the day about the same time. So I was out with Mabel and decided I'd take my mace with me.

Joe: 46:31
That's a good idea.

Carmela: 46:32
I didn't have to use it, but it's a weird thing to have to worry about.

Joe: 46:34
And then I said you should have taken the bear spray, and then she's like, Why would I do that? That's stupid.

Carmela: 46:39
I was like, that makes the walk no fun at all.

Joe: 46:41
Well, plus it just shows how paranoid I am because I have bear spray in the city and I live in the city. Okay, anyway. What would you well I don't know. I don't know what the baras what should they have done?

Carmela: 46:51
I guess really No, I mean they probably did the right thing. They didn't do anything more than they could of it's just too bad they didn't, you know, come across that idea earlier.

Joe: 47:01
Yeah, or the pepper spray.

Carmela: 47:02
Uh we need an update, maybe. Maybe they'll update everybody on how things are going.

Joe: 47:06
Well, I think the harvest went well.

Carmela: 47:07
You know, they they did all, I mean, even like next year. Let's just you know we'll we'll call them up.

Joe: 47:12
We'll call them up and see. Okay, some listener shout-outs. Adrian, aka art metal girl on Instagram. She sent us a video. There's this series of videos that are really funny of this mollier, and it was on boxed wine, so it was perfect timing. Justin, Justin, our buddy from Canada, sent us a note on TikTok. I didn't realize it was just it was the same Justin. Oh. But he was like, hey, I think I mentioned Grillo wine to you guys. No way. Because we did the Grillo episode, and I was like, Justin, I'm such an idiot. So thanks for the suggestion, Justin. And we will try and remember and have good memory about what you and other people suggest. So apologies for that. Our friend Tips to Live By, she just came back from Sicily. Ooh. And she said she didn't have grillow when she was there, but she loved the wines in Sicily. They really didn't say so. East Idaho Foodies reached out on Instagram to say they just tried Oki Pinti wine, specifically a blend of Frappato and Nero de Avila, and I think they liked it. I couldn't quite tell. But they said it had crunchy red fruit and barnyard. Which actually, my observation has been with Frappato that if it's a little warm, like if it's not really cold, you can get kind of that barnyardy kind of taste. It's a little off. And then I just want to note that Alison Luvera from Juliet Wine reached out to us on Instagram. Right. And she offered to send us some wine because she thought that maybe we had gotten a bad batch of wine. And perhaps we didn't. And perhaps we did. I thought that was a nice gesture. Very nice. I'm I'm not gonna I'm not gonna take the wine, but I thought it was a very kind thing for her to do. Yes, that was very thoughtful and made us feel a little guilty. But you know what? We are just honest. We're honest. We had a long conversation.

Carmela: 48:52
We loved the packaging.

Joe: 48:54
Yes, and we had a long conversation about our son with it, and it's part of our MO is that we're just gonna be honest.

Carmela: 48:59
Right, and it's we can't fake it. We can't fake it. If you don't like something, it's it's be honest, and it's okay.

Joe: 49:04
We're not trying to yuck your yum. If you're like this wine is the bee's knees, hallelujah.

Carmela: 49:08
And if you're like, oh wow, these guys don't like it, that and that means I'm gonna love it. Yeah, great.

Joe: 49:13
And you guys suck, and that's fine. Like that's fine.

Carmela: 49:15
Wow, I mean, you don't have to call names.

Joe: 49:17
Well, you can tell us we suck, it's fine.

Carmela: 49:19
Wait, I didn't agree to that. Okay. I'm not about calling names.

Joe: 49:22
Oh, you're right. You she's not a name caller.

Carmela: 49:24
No.

Joe: 49:25
Okay. Wine's coming up in future episodes in case you want to drink long with us. And by the way, if you go to our show notes, you can find the exact vintages. You can even find links sometimes to the wines. We're gonna do Erbeluce, we're gonna do Mandayus, we're gonna do Cote d'Oron, and we have a Cremont from Burgundy coming up. And uh, but if you have other ideas for wines, let us know and we'll always add them to the list. But with that, we want to thank you for listening to us and supporting our show. And remember, we buy all of our own wine and we do all the writing and recording and editing to bring you a show every week because we love doing it. And our small little ask is that you please follow or subscribe to our podcast and please leave us a nice five-star rating and review to help us grow our listeners. And again, thank you so much to all of you who support our show. We really appreciate it. You can also follow us on Instagram at Blue Sky and TikTok at the WinePair Podcast. You can contact us on our website, thewinepairpodcast.com. Sign up for our email newsletter there. Again, I will hand deliver the newsletter to you that you just missed. And we had some good stuff in there Thanksgiving wine ideas, uh, what to do if you're bringing the wine, what how you should think about it. You can also visit our shop wine section where you can find links to buy the wines that we rate as buys in every episode. And we want to make content that you care about and you like, so send us a note or DM us or stock us at the store. Come and visit our house. We don't care. You know, we've got Halloween candy left because we didn't get one Halloween year. Come by and we'll give you Halloween.

Carmela: 50:45
Trick or treat, that's all you have to say. Doesn't matter what day of the year it is.

Joe: 50:49
No, just come over. Let us know if there's wines you want us to try or winemaking your each of the world that you're curious about, and we'll take care of it. Joe at the winepairpodcast.com is the email. But with that, we're gonna sign off. So thank you once again. We'll see you next time. And as we like to say life is short, so stop drinking shitty wine. Bye-bye.