Chateauneuf Trivia

Actually, to be pedantic and nitpicky (but not macho), if you've had Clairette de Die, you haven't really had Clairette. You had Muscat mostly. Clairette de Die is Muscat a Petits Grains with Clairette allowed in to the blend...at 25% max. You made the mistake of confusing Clairette the grape with Clairette the AOC; always fatal when you're trying to be simple and straightforward with anything French.

Hoke, Hoke, Hoke,
You gotta read what I wrote if you're going to engage in a macho pedant smackdown with me, old thing As you yourself have now noted, there's a world of difference between Clairette de Die and Cremant de Die, and in one of those delicious ironies that the INAO is so good at, if you want to taste Clairette in the Diois, you're better off with the Cremant, which I suspect was why that AOC was introduced in the first place.

Pedantically yours,
Mark Lipton

(For that, you're going to have to find a varietal Terret Noir for our next get-together)

Duly noted, Herr Doktor Professor.

Point remains, however, that you could suck down lots of Cremant and still not have sampled a varietal Clairette...necessarily.

Terret Noir, hm? See what I can do.

Went to an occasion recently wherein a wine geek with the order of merit cackled in triumph----and I mean actually cackled----when he revealed a bottle of bone dry Pedro Ximenez, and said, "I've bet you've never had THIS!"

I ruined his entire evening.

[David M. Bueker]

Went to an occasion recently wherein a wine geek with the order of merit cackled in triumph----and I mean actually cackled----when he revealed a bottle of bone dry Pedro Ximenez, and said, "I've bet you've never had THIS!"

I ruined his entire evening.

Not unlike my experience a few weeks ago where I nailed a Vitovska blind.

There's Clairette de Die Tradition (and by that is meant in the tradition methode dioise) which is what I was alluding to, Keith. That is defined as Muscat a PG with a maximum of 25% Clairette (and usually less).

Then there's Cremant de Die, which, as you and Mark correctly said, is mostly Clairette, referred to by Jancis Robinson as "flabby." "overweight" and "overworked". Telling choice of words there.


Hoke, you expect us to remember all that!!! You de man.