YES! Organic & No-Added Sulfite Sparkling Wines are a Thing! (DELICIOUS)

I'm actually very curious to try this very wine. I generally love sulfite-free wines because you taste the genuine character of the grapes and the wine without any interference from the sulfites, and that's generally very very interesting. It doesn't prevent the wine from spoiling every once in a while, especially when you're talking to a camera. Hello, bonjour! This is Julien, the French winemaking guy who makes wine videos here on YouTube and this is episode number 54 of my Tasting with Julien series where I taste and explain interesting aspects of the world of wine with you. I know my glass is empty for now but it'll change in a moment. We explain interesting aspects of the world of wine, illustrating why wines taste like they do depending on their provenance, the grapes, the winemaking techniques, etc. And this is actually the fourth episode dedicated to sparkling wines, how they are made and why it matters to the taste. I've partnered with Louis Bouillot, which is a producer of traditional method sparkling wines in the illustrious Burgundy wine region of France. They make fantastic sparkling wines, let me spoil it for you, those are called Crémant de Bourgogne, from some of the best terroirs for sparkling wines in France, but in Burgundy, not in Champagne. And they are truly fascinating wines to explore. So in previous episodes we looked at the different grapes used to make sparkling wines and why the grape matters to that. We looked at how they taste different depending on the grapes. We looked at different terroirs and we looked at the influence of the vintage conditions as well. I certainly recommend you check those out after watching this video to learn more about those different fascinating aspects. Today I want to highlight innovations and advancements, new trends in the world of sparkling wines, illustrating those trends with the three different wines. One is an organic sparkling wine because yes, more and more wineries turn organic and it often, if you ask me, when it's well made, it makes for wines that are more interesting. We'll find out if it's the case with this one. The other two wines are no added sulfites wines because also yes it is possible, it's not easy, but it is possible to make even sparkling wines without using additional sulfites. And I can't wait to have a word about sulfites but also to find out how these wines taste as I find that sulfite free or no added sulfites wines, when they are well made again, have a really pure expression of fruit that is generally utterly enjoyable. But enough said for this, for now, as an intro, let's get into the wines. Organic wines are definitely a trend for sure and I personally don't mind it at all. At some point, maybe 10 years ago perhaps, some organic wine producers weren't producing that great wines because they were organic but now I find that organic wines are generally very well made and often more interesting, they're more characterful than conventional wines and I'm glad to see a sparkling wine producers like Louis Bouillot, some sparkling wine producers are moving in that direction as well. Essentially, you must know that it's possibly a little more difficult to make an organic sparkling wine than a still white or even more so a red wine. That's for one, because sparkling wines are often made in colder or cooler areas like Champagne or Burgundy, if we're talking about France, often those areas are more humid regions as well. So the grapes there are more prone to diseases than in hot and dry areas like the south of France or Italy or Spain for example. So it is a little harder because of this. The base wines used to make sparkling wines, that's reason number two, are also very subtle and delicate in flavors. So you really need very clean grapes, grapes that would have had a little bit of disease on them, while it probably wouldn't matter maybe for other styles. Still wines, for sparkling wines, it might impact those subtle flavors a little too much if there's even tiny bit of disease on it. So it has to be done really carefully and masterfully. It's a bit of a greater risk and more effort to make organic sparkling wines, especially when it's sparkling. But let's see if the result is worth it, here with this wine that is called Perle de Jade by Louis Bouillon. So this is the first ever organic cuvee by this producer, even though they make different wines, all very well crafted. I've tried quite a few of these and many different characteristics have all of these wines they had not ventured into organic yet. It's done here with this cuvee that is a blend of different Burgundy grapes, namely, as the winery describes it, quote, aligoté for vivaciousness, tempered with the smoothness of Chardonnay and underscored by the structure of Pinot Noir, and an invigorating touch of Gamay. So dosage, the added sugar is at 12 grams per liter, and it's spent 12 months in bottle aging on the leaves. Classic, method traditionnel, but it's made from organic grapes. But let's get tasting it. Let's open the bottle and see what it actually tastes like. I can't wait. I don't think I've tried many organic wines very often so this is going to be a very surprise for me. I can't wait. This sound is always delightful. Very nice mousse. You can see that I'm using a broader glass than just a flute so I can taste it better. Beautiful color, it's bright light lemon yellow. Aromas are certainly extremely fresh. They're quite floral. I'm getting some little flowers, floral elements like daisy, floral aspects to it. It's a little bit grassy as well and it's got this je ne sais quoi, sometimes I get this with some wines, the impression that you're standing in a paddock in an early morning, a foggy early morning. It's got this freshness of pure air when you know it's foggy you get the air is so pure you only get some delicate aromas that come through and come up the paddock and the air and I'm definitely getting this impression here a bit of pure as well it's delicately lemony there's this touch of brioche anyhow it's all very very delicate to smell. I don't expect necessarily organic wines to be more fragrant or less but certainly very very delicate and subtle here on the nose. Let's dig into what it tastes like. So what really struck me first is the smoothness on this wine. You might have seen my face and my expressions while I was tasting it. You're invaded straight away by smoothness. It's like a cloud on your palate at first and I really enjoy this so very well balanced some nice acidity that is sharp and that develops through the palate but all rounded up by this cloud and oily texture so extremely well balanced yes the acidity kind of cut through through from the mid palate on and then it develops to towards a bit more of a grassiness and there's a bit of a bite to the finish so really characterful wine very civilized and sophisticated and balanced at first but then it evolves towards a bit of a grassiness so there's some bit of personality in there I guess the grapes weren't harvested all that ripe they still had this grassiness to them lemony characters some lime the floral characters as well the grapefruit and this grassiness that is really the mark of this wine and I actually love this because it's sophisticated it's you can sense that it's been very well crafted and rounded up and mellowed and smoothened up by the process but it retains the freshness of those kind of green vibrant grapes that it's been made from and perhaps that's one of the things that you gain from having an organic wine you get the true expression of the grapes and grapes that aren't necessarily all that perfect all that ripe but yet characterful while it's harder to make sparkling wine from organic grapes than from conventional grapes it's even harder to make sparkling wine without using sulfites in them in short to talk a little bit briefly about sulfites what we call sulfites or sulfite is in fact one molecule that is called sulfur dioxide so one atom of sulfur and two atoms of oxygen bound to it so a fairly natural molecule that is obtained by burning sulfur to oxidize it and that's it you only burn sulfur and you get sulfur dioxide so this is a molecule because it's quite simple to make and quite natural it's present in nature quite commonly it's been used for centuries and centuries in wine because it protects the wine both from oxidation and contaminations by microorganisms bacteria in particular it blocks those bacteria from growing in the wine and spoil it so sulfites are the relatively small doses that are used in wine considering you don't drink too much wine which is never a good idea sulfites are fairly harmless for the body so it's convenient to use it but sulfites do change the taste of a wine especially sparkling wines that have those subtle aromas now again because sparkling wines are very subtle in flavors they are quite fragile and sensitive to contaminations as well so even though in theory it'd be very interesting to make sulfite free or no added sulfite sparkling wines and see what they taste like it's not actually a needy thing to do from a winemaking standpoint at all you have to be very cautious with contaminations bacterial contamination yet Louis Bouillot has done it here thanks to some recent innovations and very precise winemaking I'm told essentially what they do here is of course control the quality of the grapes that are used to make the wine so the grapes have to be impeccable also the hygiene and the winery but that they already did a lot of modern wineries do that perhaps it's pushed a little further in this case but more importantly when the grapes are harvested and pressed instead of adding sulfites to protect the juice they add some selected yeasts and bacteria that are harmless for the wine but that protect it against bad microbes preventing them from growing the bad microbes in the medium that is the juice it's like an army of good bugs if you wish that protect the juice and the wine from potential invasions rather than using a chemical to protect the wine they use good microorganisms does that make sense that's how you make a sulfite free sparkling wine plus probably some extra measures on how to process the wine of course but enough said I'm actually very curious to try this very wine I generally love sulfite free wines because you taste the genuine character of the grapes and the wine without any interference from the sulfites and that's generally very very interesting it doesn't prevent the wine from spoiling every once in a while especially when you're talking to a camera while explaining what the wine is all about I can't wait to get into this wine and explain the story what it tastes like now so you have those two sulfite free wines here one that is 100% chardonnay the one that have just poured and one that is 100% Pinot Noir so it'll be fascinating to taste the difference I assume so let's start with the chardonnay so this is a Blanc de Blanc sparkling wine because it's made only from white grapes so just chardonnay and it's made with a traditional method so refermented inside this very bottle this very wine is called the Perle d'Ivoire without added sulfites understand the ivory pearl and it's also a single vineyard wine made from just one block as we know and in the village of Sabini in Burgundy you've probably heard about that village is very close to bone so in the heart of the Cote d'Or in Burgundy some of the best terroirs there it's fermented at low temperature to really preserve the fruit and aged for 18 months in this very bottle to round it up and make it more complex there are really not many bottles of these wines that are made very limited production I guess they might crank up the production if there's more demand but those wines are hard to make and the glass of this very bottle is slightly different to protect the wine even more against the light because the wine is a little bit more fragile there's very small dosage only four grams per liter of sugar that is added so that's an extra brute this is to leave the pure expression of the wine itself no much interference either from the sulfite but neither from the sugars as well so on paper this all sounds fantastic but let's get tasting let's get sniffing the color for one is rather intense it's a little bit orangey and I'm surprised this is yeah 100% Chardonnay only Blanc de Blanc but it's got some slightly orangey hues to it so you know there's certainly no Pinot Noir no red grapes used for this but it's got this little kit delicate orangey aspect to it which actually quite like and this smells also extremely delicate Wow I'm getting the pure brioche with a bit of orange blossom on the nose so it's like a brioche out of the oven with a delicate orange blossom essence into it Wow extremely pure I'm actually wow I love the smell of this wine hmm oh wow this is actually actually utterly brilliant this orange blossom kind of a bit of an orange liqueur type of flavors but extremely extremely delicate it's slightly buttery and brioche there's a lot of floral explosion as well like really fresh lily flowers elder flowers it's smooth it's acidic but the bubbles are actually extremely smooth and and I love that freshness of the fruit in the brioche flavors that just it feels really really relaxing because I guess perhaps there's no sulfites to sort of annoy your senses a little bit there's no sort of kerosene or yeah kerosene or gasoline characters from the sulfite that you often get from the sulfite that kind of blurs a little bit and makes some nasty noise on the background even though the wine stays good but there's a bit of this nasty unpleasant noise on the background none of this here which sort of makes you feel makes the wine feel complete really fruity all of the fragrant grapefruit juice the delicate maybe fresh strawberry a touch of that I mean quite complex but the smoothness it's not complexity from spices from oakiness from aging it's purely on the fruit expression from the leaves as well because it spent 18 months on the leaves anyhow it's Wow I'm loving loving this Wow the intensity of the fruit and the purity extremely intense extremely concentrated but also extremely pure no oak not that many spices pure expression of fruit yet it's balanced it's structured it's textural a lot going on here I usually prefer Pinot Noir or Blanc de Noir over Blanc de Blanc but this Blanc de Blanc is so phenomenal I can't wait to dig into the Pinot Noir now let's talk about it briefly so the second wine is called Perle de Nuit with no added sulfites of course understand the night pearl and it's pretty much virtually the same characteristics as the previous wine low dosage very very low sugar extremely limited production special bottle to protect it traditional method but it's made as we've said with 100% Pinot Noir grapes I'm not I'm not a sommelier so not always extremely precise with opening bottles of sparkling wines and they are warming up a little bit as I'm speaking as well which explains me not being extremely precise the color is perhaps even brighter surprisingly with this Blanc de Noir sometimes the Blanc de Noir because they made from red grapes from Pinot Noir are a little bit taché we say or tainted from being made from red grapes so sometimes you have some red pigments in those wines but it's not the case here really bright lemon yellow color this is more on the marzipan almondy almond lollies almond bakes sort of almond really very much so with a bit of a pomegranate as well as some apricot so it's more on the riper more stone fruity pomegranate the pomegranate I guess you know make sense from the Pinot Noir because it's a red grape so a little bit more on the red berries perhaps pomegranate grape fruity as well more than the Blanc de Blanc that tend to remain on the citrus side of things so maybe a bit riper a bit more generous is what you perceive the fruit is more generous more sweeter sensation from the fruit character if you wish on the nose let's see what it tastes like Wow okay Wow indeed I'm saying Wow because it's just completely different it's a completely different universe I guess this one tastes much more like a citrus juice and orange juice to be precise maybe with a bit of grapefruit maybe with a bit of apricot so maybe one of those mixed fruit type of juice with a base of orange but a bit of apricot a bit of white peach it's extremely extremely generous there was more acidic tension on the Blanc de Blanc this is more about the opulence much more body and I guess it makes sense because in sparkling wines we generally use Pinot Noir more for the body and the Chardonnay for the tension and the acidity the minerality the zinginess in when we make blends so the Pinot Noir here is much more opulent it's really mouth-feeling really really smooth there's perhaps a little bit more phenolics at the end so a bit more yes salinity a bit more stringency to the finish which definitely suggests this is more of a wine to go with food and we'll talk in a moment about the food suggestions for those two this is certainly a wine to go with foods with entrees with canapes and even let's say a wine to go and to drink all along meal if you're looking to enjoy on different courses this is going to be a fantastically versatile wine to go with food as well completely different personality we were on the lightness the lively citrusy of delicate fruity floral characters here we more on the ripe stone fruit grapefruit ripe orange citrus type of fruit rather than the green or lemon citrus over there absolutely fascinating to taste as well and actually tasting it again I can certainly taste the strawberry in this as well so many many different components there's immense complexity in this wine as well that's why it's perhaps a little harder to describe because there's elements coming and hitting your senses one after the other in many different directions many different nodes so it takes a bit of time to sort of get around how good this wine is another good element to say that this one is going to go fantastically well over many different dishes over the course of an entire meal I want this one to go with my next meal given it's not too powerful stay on rather delicate dishes but let's talk about food pairing and I looked it up the suggested food pairings from the winery itself for the ivory pearl Louis Bouillot recommends delicate antipasti and canapes but also interestingly they recommend spicy dishes and sweet and savory dishes so Asian cuisine on this is a possibility I have not seen it but now I can see it and I can see this working really really well for this one Louis Bouillot suggests a mushroom risotto yeah I can see that that would go really well with this delicately earthy characters of this wine they also recommend some baked stuffed tomatoes just to give you some ideas and I can see that as well many many dishes would go really well on this wine in particular any day of the week mushroom risottos with this wine oh yes please if you haven't watched my previous episodes made with the other wines from Louis Bouillot where I explained the different grapes that they use the different terroirs of Burgundy and the different vintages that they offer as well I certainly recommend that you watch those next to really understand everything better even better about those wines their origin who is Louis Bouillot more precisely specifically I think this series of video with them demonstrates how outside of champagne and in Burgundy in particular a winery that pays close attention to what they make bottles different grapes and different vineyards separately etc all of this demonstrates how you can make some very different wines having each a very unique character and you don't find us very often with sparkling wines right there are subtle but significant differences between all of these wines they are fascinating to explore and we were your exploits those differences and highlights them with many different cuvées that they make they make 20 plus of them I think and that's fantastic it's been fantastic to taste them all the fact that they've gone organic with that first cuvee that we tried and continued innovating with the sulfite free wines and not only did they make one sulfite free or no added sulfite I should say winery sometimes make one no added sulfite wine to get into it they've made two so we can actually compare them and they're so different it's really really remarkable and yes I've had a partnership with Louis Bouillot to taste and explain these wines for you but the whole journey has been a real revelation of how precise and careful with their winemaking they are exploiting the traditional method with fantastic grapes and making a beautiful wine how good burgundy sparkling can be as well so yes a big thank you to Louis Bouillot for sharing these wines and I can't recommend these wines enough give them a go if you get a chance I hope you enjoyed the episode thanks for watching and I would see you soon in the wonderful world of wine...