Petit Manseng
The great sweet-wine grape of Jurancon, Petit Manseng shrivels on the vine to make honeyed, high-acid dessert wines.
About Petit
Petit Manseng is the aristocrat of southwest France's Manseng family, prized in the Pyrenean foothills of Jurancon for sweet wines of extraordinary intensity and nerve. Its tiny, thick-skinned berries resist rot and cling to the vine deep into autumn, shrivelling naturally (passerillage) to concentrate sugar while retaining searing acidity, so the resulting late-harvest wines taste of pineapple, apricot, honey and spice yet finish bright rather than cloying. Unusually, its dessert wines are made without noble rot, setting them apart from Sauternes. Long confined to sweet styles, Petit Manseng is now also bottled dry and has found a warm-climate second home in Virginia. Low-yielding and labour-intensive, it remains a connoisseur's grape whose hallmark is the tension between opulent fruit and electric freshness.
Variety profile
Editorial notes
Its sweetness comes from vine-drying (passerillage), not botrytis; serve the sweet versions chilled with blue cheese or foie gras. Dry examples reward a decant.