UK Wine Hour - focus on Picpoul de Pinet

#ukwinehour is a Twitter live feed every Thursday 7pm til 8pm hosted by Sorcha Holloway. Each week has a different topic and this week it was one of my favourite wines - Picpoul de Pinet.

Sorcha chose a few regular #ukwinehour tweeters to be this weeks tasters, we each received two bottles of this great wine from the Languedoc region of France.

I really enjoy doing these tasting. Hubby and I like to pair the wine and take photos to show our tastings. Here's tonight's questions and my tweeted answers, including my introduction tweet.

Evening everyone, I'm Clare. I've been a fan of Picpoul de Pinet for many years enjoying this super wine on holiday in France long before it was available in the UK. I used to tell our son @StormKoopa to serve it in the pub with mussels.

Question1: Let’s start off this evening by asking - what do you know about the appellation AOC Languedoc Picpoul de Pinet?

We've holidayed in the Languedoc many times, recently in Meze which is one of the five Picpoul growing areas, Pinet being the central one. This appellation lies next to the Etang du Thau with its oyster and mussel beds, as you can see in my hols photo.

The limestone sandy soil, the salty sea air from the Etang du Thau is perfect for growing picpoul grapes. The sea breeze protects the grapes from getting too hot and the inland water helps stop the night temperature being too low.

Question 2: Our tasters tonight will now report back on their first wine - what did you like about this wine?

My first wine is Felines Jourdan a brand I know well. Unfortunately we missed visiting the domaine in 2017 when on hols. It's such a clean crisp dry wine, full of zesty citrus 

Question 3: Picpoul de Pinet is growing in popularity here in the UK, with a 46% increase in sales from 2017 - 2018.
What is it about Picpoul de Pinet which makes it so popular?

I think the UK restaurant market has moved more into fresh sea food, especially mussels, and the wines previously on offer did not quite fit. Wine suppliers brought Picpoul de Pinet into the UK market and it's now becoming popular in bars and restaurants 

Picpoul de Pinet has a very  distinctive bottle, tall and thin with a crested neck. It certainly stands out on the supermarket shelves, on bar shelves and in restaurants.

Question 4: Describe what you like about this style of wine

I love it's cleaness, so light and delicate yet full of flavour


Question 5: Our tasters tonight will now report back on their second wine - what did you like about this wine?

We visited Ormarine in 2017 - a superb producer- so I was delighted to receive a bottle of Carte Noire as my second tasting.  Superb glistening yellow in the glass with a lovely citrus flavour 

We discovered so many delicious wines as you can read in my blog post Wines of the Languedoc 

Question 6: What is your dream food match with this Picpoul de Pinet wine?

We bought some crevettes to accompany the Carte Noire l'Ormarine Picpoul de Pinet - they were delicious, a perfect pairing 

Felines Jourdan was perfect with mussels, if anything it brings more 'sea' to their flavour. I really enjoyed this, it was like being back in the sunny warm South of France instead of the UK wet winter 

I do enjoy a well chilled glass of Picpoul de Pinet accompanied by a few mussels - especially if they are in rocquefort sauce 

The wines were courtesy of Su Lin Ong London  - we all received different brands and I will be looking out for these other labels:

Domaine Reine Juliette

Camp Aucels Jean le Blanc

Domaine des Lauriers

Duc de Morny L'Ormarine 

Les Vignerons de Florensac

Domaine Guillemarine

Chateau Petit Roubié

Domaine du Chateau de Pinet 

Feline, Domaine Félines Jourdan

Thank you Sorcha, UK Wine Hour and Su Lin Ong London for the opportunity to enjoy these wonderful wines and share my enthusiasm with others 🤗