This cuvée has become part of the standard production despite it being originally an experiment and a fun thing to do! Here Julien has made this amazing pétillant naturel with a difference. And the difference is that it is made primarily from the Aligoté grape variety which has had an infusion of apricots! Julien puts a large “teabag” of apricots in with the fermenting wine and it develops undertones of the apricots without dominating the resultant sparkling wine.

Why did he do such a radical thing for this wine? Well, it is all rather simple. The famous Belgian brewer of lambic beers, Cantillon, has a beer called Fou’Foune and guess what they do. You guessed, they add 300 grams of apricots for every one litre of beer and leave it to macerate for 5 weeks. So this is a homage to a beer that Julien likes very much. You will notice that this sparkling wine is labelled as “Extra Brut” which indicates that there has been no dosage, that is no sugar added to this cuvée.

Last year we had very limited quantities of this wine and we have to admit that we drank most of it ourselves! This year there is still a limited number of bottles available but we are offering them to whoever gets in first. – Living Wines