January 5th 2024

Wine Pairing with the Galette des Rois

Tablas Creek Vineyard
Vin de Paille Roussanne 2018

Le Vin de Paille (“straw wine” in English and not to be confused with Vin Jaune) was created by the Romans and brought back to France in 622 by Saint Eloi to the French King Dagobert. Traditionally called Vin Paillé, this wine is known as the "honey of the muses". It is made using a technique called Passerillage that requires drying the bunches of grapes on a bed of straw until the end of December or beginning of January (and sometimes much longer). Its global production is tiny because the yield in the end is derisory, which obviously makes it an exceptional wine, and very rare, too. Known in France in the Rhône Valley, it’s possible today to find this technique used everywhere in the world.

The 2018 Vin de Paille is Tablas Creek’s sixth bottling (and first since 2012). Ripe Roussanne bunches are carefully laid down on straw-covered benches in their greenhouses and allowed to dehydrate in the sun. When the grapes reach the desired concentration, they are pressed and the juice is moved to neutral oak barrels for fermentation. The juice ferments until it reaches a perfect balance between sugar, alcohol, and acidity. This exceptional wine is a young straw color with dazzling reflections. With a residual sugar level of just under 130 g/L, this wine glides down the side of the glass with a wide leg but without being too thick and fatty, indicating a medium-sweet (dessert) wine. On the nose, it asserts its origins and sucrose density with delicate and subtle notes of ripe apricot, sweetness of a blonde maple syrup, roasted cereals, fresh almonds, and wild lavender fragrance. With a honeyed palate, but not overly sweet, a very nice acidity that balances the wine to be invigorating and very elegant. At tasting, aromas of roasted apricots with light caramel, white raspberries, and orange and lemon marmalade jam.  The elegance of this wine is not surprising by the seedless of the pronounced aromas. A work of a genius winemaker who knows how to master elegance and charm.

And, it's a perfect accompaniment to a Galette des Rois.

100% Roussanne
Residual Sugar: 126.4 g/L
14.5% Alcohol by Volume
150 Cases Produced
Exclusivity at Bonde Fine Wine for East Coast.