Concept card Guide
Vins doux naturels
In one sentence
Sweet wines, mostly French (Banyuls, Maury…), made by mutage: their fermentation is stopped with neutral spirit, and the remaining sugar stays in.
Mutage, step by step
A very sweet must
In Banyuls, at least 252 g of sugar per litre.
Fermentation begins
Yeasts turn part of the sugar into alcohol.
Mutage
Neutral spirit distilled from wine is added: at least 96% abv in Banyuls.
A sweet wine
The yeasts stop: the sugar still there stays in the wine.
Key points
- Mutage happens during fermentation, while there is still sugar to keep.
- The 96% abv is the strength of the added spirit, not of the wine, which is far weaker.
- Grenaches are principal grapes in Banyuls and Maury; Muscat du Cap Corse allows only Muscat à Petits Grains.
- In Banyuls, wines labelled "rimage" must be muted on the skins.
What it changes in the glass
- The grape's own sweetness, held in by mutage.
- Kept away from air, the wine holds on to its fruit and a youthful colour.
- Aged at length in contact with air, it browns and takes on dried-fruit and walnut notes ("hors d'âge", "rancio").
Not to be confused with…
A wine fortified afterwards
The spirit goes in once fermentation is over: no grape sugar is left to keep, so the spirit does not make it sweet.
A botrytised, dried-grape or ice wine
Raisining, noble rot or freezing concentrate the sugar before fermentation, with no spirit added.
Two growers mute the same Grenache must: one early in the fermentation, the other when it is nearly over. Which one gets the sweeter wine?
One question to test yourself: it does not count towards your progress.
Stopping a fermentation in full flow
While fermentation is under way, with plenty of the must's sugar still unfermented, the grower adds neutral spirit distilled from wine. The yeasts stop, and the sugar they have not yet fermented stays in the wine.
INAO's description of Maury sums it up in one line: fermentation is stopped by adding wine spirit at 96 degrees, midway through.
252 g/L
of sugar at least in the must, in Banyuls as in Maury
96% abv
at least, for the added spirit in Banyuls and Maury: its purity, not the wine's
5 to 10%
of the must's volume, as pure alcohol: the spirit added in Banyuls
A wine stopped, not rebuilt
Fortifying a wine that has fermented right through to dryness means adding spirit to a liquid with no grape sugar left: if it were sweet, the sweetness would come from something added. A vin doux naturel keeps the grape's own sugar, wherever mutage caught it.
15% abv
minimum actual alcohol in the finished wine, in Banyuls and Maury
45 g/L
minimum sugar in that same finished wine
Two almost opposite ways of ageing
- Away from air: the wine keeps bright fruit and a youthful colour. This is the style sought in particular for Muscats, where the grape's aroma comes first.
- Exposed to air, in large casks or in glass demijohns left in the sun: the wine browns, loses its fresh fruit and takes on dried-fruit and walnut notes.
- The terms "hors d'âge" and "rancio" mark extended oxidative ageing. In Banyuls, "hors d'âge" requires at least 5 years of ageing.
- "Rancio" is kept for air-aged wines (ambré, traditionnel, tuilé) that have taken on its taste, in Banyuls and Maury.
Banyuls and Maury, two examples
- Banyuls has five terms: ambré, blanc, rosé, rimage, traditionnel. Wines labelled "rimage" are muted on the skins.
- Maury has four: ambré, blanc, grenat, tuilé. Grenache Noir is the principal grape of grenat and tuilé.
- For Maury's ambré and blanc, the principal grapes are Grenache Blanc and Gris, Macabeu and Tourbat.
- Elsewhere, Muscat à Petits Grains alone makes Muscat du Cap Corse, a white vin doux naturel with citrus and quince aromas.
To learn it in depth
Related reading
Sources (9)
- Official sourceCahier des charges de l'appellation d'origine contrôlée « Maury »— Institut national de l'origine et de la qualité (INAO)
- Official sourceCahier des charges de l'appellation d'origine contrôlée « Banyuls »— Institut national de l'origine et de la qualité (INAO)
- Reference bookThe Oxford Companion to Wine— Oxford University Press
- Academic publicationOptimal Conditions for the Formation of Sotolon from α-Ketobutyric Acid in the French "Vin Jaune"— Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry
- Other sourceVin doux naturel— Wikipédia (édition anglaise)
- Other sourceBeaumes de Venise AOC— Wikipédia (édition anglaise)
- Trade bodyVins du Roussillon — site officiel du Conseil Interprofessionnel des Vins du Roussillon (CIVR)— Conseil Interprofessionnel des Vins du Roussillon (CIVR)
- Reference bookHandbook of Enology, Volume 2: The Chemistry of Wine — Stabilization and Treatments— Wiley
- Academic publicationRapid Determination of Sotolon in Fortified Wines Using a Miniaturized Liquid-Liquid Extraction Followed by LC-MS/MS Analysis— Journal of Analytical Methods in Chemistry