2020 Les Jardins de Babylone Jurançon Moelleux

Made in tiny quantities from ridiculously low yields of Petit Manseng, this offers all the purity and precision of Dagueneau’s greatest wines. Dider Dagueneau loved the wines of J. J. Prüm, and you can think of this as a Prüm-styled Jurançon (such is the purity and electric intensity!). The pricing reflects the costs of making the wine (via berry-by-berry selection, even though no botrytis is involved). To arrive at this price per bottle, the claim is that the project's costs are simply totalled and then divided by the number of bottles made. Sounds logical enough! The low yields and warmth of the site mean Les Jardins de Babylone can be picked in late October, a whole month before the grapes for conventional Jurançon Moelleux are typically picked. Even so, the wine usually ends up with approximately 130 g/L residual sugar, perfectly balanced by tangy, mouthwatering acidity to give a wine with fabulous verve and drive. As alluded to above, this wine is Germanic in style, so it isn’t only a dessert wine, but can also be drunk throughout the meal (the way you might consume a German Auslese) or with cheese. Of course, it can work brilliantly with carefully matched desserts (ideally citrus- or apple-based).