Domaine Cauhapé is a unique wine. They use carmaralet, a nearly extinct grape to make a $15 bottle of wine.
Camaralet (aka Camaralet de Lasseube) is paired with gros manseng in this interesting wine. It uses old grapes in a fairly new style. It wasn't all that long ago that the area, Jurancon, was associated with sweet wines, desert wines. This wine, and a half dozen others from Cauhapé, are dry. This particular wine, "Chant des Vignes", has a lot of citrus, spice (maybe a whiff of anise), pepper and a plethora of sometimes tropical fruit that rounds out the wine. You will see references to cinnamon flavors but that doesn't seem to be the case with this wine. There is good acidity here to give it some backbone too. It isn't SUPER high acid but it has enough.
Camaralet (aka Camaralet de Lasseube) is paired with gros manseng in this interesting wine. It uses old grapes in a fairly new style. It wasn't all that long ago that the area, Jurancon, was associated with sweet wines, desert wines. This wine, and a half dozen others from Cauhapé, are dry. This particular wine, "Chant des Vignes", has a lot of citrus, spice (maybe a whiff of anise), pepper and a plethora of sometimes tropical fruit that rounds out the wine. You will see references to cinnamon flavors but that doesn't seem to be the case with this wine. There is good acidity here to give it some backbone too. It isn't SUPER high acid but it has enough.
Camaralet is an old varietal. This is corroborated by a number of sources but none of them get specific with dates. It seems to have moved north from it's original home in the Pyrenees (not a huge trek to Gascony). Another common theme is that this is a grape with great potential to make excellent wine.
So why is there so little of it? It is difficult to grow. It is a female vine rather than hermaphroditic. It has to be planted close to male or hermaphroditic vines in order to pollinate. Likewise it doesn't have great yields (but low yields often mean quality grapes).
But what about gros manseng? This grape is all over Gascony and Jurancon and is a component of numerous wines both dry and sweet. It is often partnered with petit manseng, colombard and even sauvignon blanc in dry blends. There is even gros manseng in places like Arizona. Gros manseng is easier to grow than camaralet. If I recall there are some plantings of gros manseng in Arizona and perhaps in Virginia too.
Some sources--
The Domaine Cauhapé website.
The always helpful Wine Searcher's 2 cents.
For more technical information head to Plant Grape--Catalog of Grapevines Cultivated in France.
A previous discussion of a gros manseng wine from Charles Hours (Cuvee Marie).
So why is there so little of it? It is difficult to grow. It is a female vine rather than hermaphroditic. It has to be planted close to male or hermaphroditic vines in order to pollinate. Likewise it doesn't have great yields (but low yields often mean quality grapes).
But what about gros manseng? This grape is all over Gascony and Jurancon and is a component of numerous wines both dry and sweet. It is often partnered with petit manseng, colombard and even sauvignon blanc in dry blends. There is even gros manseng in places like Arizona. Gros manseng is easier to grow than camaralet. If I recall there are some plantings of gros manseng in Arizona and perhaps in Virginia too.
Some sources--
The Domaine Cauhapé website.
The always helpful Wine Searcher's 2 cents.
For more technical information head to Plant Grape--Catalog of Grapevines Cultivated in France.
A previous discussion of a gros manseng wine from Charles Hours (Cuvee Marie).
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