The sweet, fortified dessert wine has a very old history, originating in the French Roussillon in the eastern Pyrenees. The invention goes back to the famous doctor and scholar Arnaldus de Villanova (1240-1311), who experimented with making brandy and wine on the Knights Templar estate around 1285. He discovered that spriting (adding alcohol) stops fermentation and preserves residual sugar in the wine. This was the birth of the VDN, which was popular in the Middle Ages. When the Kingdom of Majorca (now Roussillon) became part of France in 1659, the Sun King Louis XIV (1638-1715) served this wine to his guests in Versailles. The philosopher Voltaire (1694-1778) and the later US President Thomas Jefferson (1743-1826) also raved about it.
Production method
The designation and production of the VDN were first legally protected in 1872 and in 1936 the wines received the AOC classification. The individual areas are spread across the departments of Aude, Hérault, Pyrénées-Orientales and Vaucluse in the south of France as well as on the island of Corsica. The main varieties authorised are Muscat Blanc à Petits Grains and Muscat d'Alexandrie, as well as Macabeo, Malvoisie du Roussillon (Torbato), Grenache Blanc (Garnacha Blanca), Grenache Gris (Garnacha Roja) and Grenache Noir (Garnacha Tinta). Further regulations concern must weight (at least 252 g/l), maximum yield (30 hl/ha and less), alcohol content (at least 15 to 18% vol.), residual sugar (at least 45 to over 100 g/l for some varieties), vinification and minimum ageing (up to 30 months barrel ageing).
The cellar master decides when the pure, flavour-neutral wine spirit is added to the fermenting must. For the best wines, the wine spirit is poured over the grape mash (mutage sur grains); the mash fermentation can last up to four weeks. Only then is the mash pressed. The traditional vin doux naturel age in large 600-litre wooden barrels, where they are deliberately exposed to oxidation. This takes place in the open air, where they are subjected to large temperature fluctuations. Since 975, the new type of vintage (in Banyuls Rimage) has been produced from particularly good vintages. These mostly deep red wines are bottled early and age like great red wines. They have an intense cherry and berry flavour.
Appellations
The appellations in Roussillon (90% of French VDN production) are Banyuls, Maury, Muscat de Rivesaltes and Rivesaltes, where these wines are produced in red and white versions with different varietal mixes or also single-varietal. The best VDN are the red wines made from Grenache Noir, which can be stored for up to 20 years and longer. In the Languedoc region, VDNs are produced in four appellations, the best known of which is Muscat de Frontignan, the first to be classified as an AOC. From the southern Rhône, there are two VDNs from the Muscat de Beaumes-de-Venise and Rasteau appellations. A must enriched before fermentation begins is called vin de liqueur.
Vin doux naturel and vin naturellement doux
The term "vin doux naturel" (naturally sweet wine) is, strictly speaking, incorrect because spriting is an "artificial intervention", which contradicts "natural". The "naturally sweet" refers to the fact that no sweetening was carried out using appropriate means. Incidentally, the term is also used in other countries, including in Greece for the sweet wines Samos and Vinsanto. Other terms used here are "vin doux" (sprite after short fermentation) and "vin naturellement doux" (without sprite; a "real" naturally sweet wine).
