Robert & Bernard Plageoles L'Ondenc Doux 2015 500ml

Sweet. Once upon a time Ondenc was held in high regard across the southwest and Aquitaine, and played a major role in the quality of the region's sweet wines. Post phylloxera this low yielding variety almost became extinct in Gaillac, before being replanted by the Plageoles family. Ondenc's naturally high acidity and vulnerability to noble rot tend to mean it does its best work as a sweet wine. That said, this wine is made almost exclusively from raisins passerillé (dried on the vine without botrytis). When these grapes have reached the appropriate maturity, the team goes around the vines pinching the stem at the top of each bunch, a method that arrests the ripening and concentrates the grapes sweetness and acidity. To get the kind of quality we find here, yields are as low as 12-15 hl/ha. The wine is then fermented and raised in 600 litre cask and finishes with around 100 grams residual, beautifully balanced by refreshing acidity. Silky and nuanced, with a Chartreuse-like complexity to the nose and figgy, layered richness to the palate, the finish is fresh and clean. It's another superb, intriguing, very fairly priced sweet wine from this Domaine.