Mauzac

Identity

Mauzac is the apple grape. It is rare, in this corpus, for an ampelographic source to name an aroma at all: Pl@ntGrape almost always declines. For Mauzac it writes it plainly — "the dominant aromas are, in general, apple aromas, and sometimes pear".

It is also the grape of a method. The Gaillac cahier des charges reserves "méthode ancestrale" sparkling wines to Mauzac B and its pink-berried form alone, to the exclusion of every other variety in the appellation. A bubble obtained without a dosage of tirage liqueur, by simply letting fermentation resume in bottle: Mauzac is its exclusive support.

History and origin

Probably native to the Gaillac area of the Tarn, it spread as far as Limoux, where it carries the Blanquette. Its parentage remains unknown: the VIVC documents no marker-confirmed pedigree.

Its planting curve is a collapse. 8,511 hectares in 1958, 9,167 in 1968 — then the fall: 6,422 in 1979, 3,534 in 1998, 1,629 in 2018. Mauzac has lost more than four-fifths of its area in sixty years, replaced everywhere by grapes easier to sell under their own name. What remains of it is owed to two appellations that refused to let it go.

In the vineyard

It buds six days after Chasselas and ripens in the second period, about three and a half weeks after it. Its vigour is moderate — Pl@ntGrape says "moderate vigour" while calling it "rather productive", two different things that should not be run together. It wants short pruning and does best on clay-limestone or limestone soils.

Its disease profile is unusual, almost inverted compared with southern varieties: it is little troubled by powdery and downy mildew, the two diseases that dictate most spray calendars, but susceptible to mites, grape berry moths, phomopsis, eutypa dieback and grey rot.

In the glass

Apple first, pear second: that is all the source gives, and this entry invents nothing beyond it.

The rest of the profile rests on two faults Pl@ntGrape does not hide, and which explain how the grape is used. At full ripeness the alcohol runs high. But the acidity drops fast, and the wine oxidises easily. A dry white Mauzac picked too late lacks freshness and can show an edge of bitterness.

Hence the logic of its two great uses. For sparkling wine it is picked early, while the acidity is still there, and the second fermentation does the rest. For sweet wine it is left to over-ripen, and the sugar masks the falling acid. Between the two, the dry wine is the most demanding style of all.

Great terroirs

Gaillac, where the text gives it three distinct and graded roles. A principal variety for still and sparkling whites, alongside Len de l'El, Mauzac Rose and Muscadelle. The only variety, with Mauzac Rose, permitted for "méthode ancestrale". But merely an accessory for late-harvest wines, where the principals are Len de l'El and Ondenc — the appellation acknowledges that another grape concentrates better than it does.

Limoux, outside this corpus for now, where it carries the Blanquette and where the same ancestral method has a name of its own.

What it gets confused with

Mauzac Rose Rs, which the cahier des charges names separately. This corpus groups it under this entry for want of a distinct ampelographic record consulted — an explicit editorial choice, to revisit if that coloured form is ever studied in its own right.

Chenin Blanc, on the single ground of covering dry, sweet and sparkling from one grape. The contrast is sharp: Chenin holds that range thanks to exceptionally high acidity, Mauzac despite an acidity that falls away. Two versatile grapes, versatile for opposite reasons.