Mademoiselle Marguerite Blanquette de Limoux Brut

Mademoiselle Marguerite by Antech – a tribute to a very special woman.

Marguerite Bourriane was the daughter of a small grapegrower at the foot of the Pyrenees mountains in France. She took over the reigns in the 1930s and became the first female winemaker in the Limoux area. Now behind the wheel of the family wine ‘biz with a real drive to succeed, she was putting the pedal to the metal in another sense when she also became the first female in the area to get her driver’s license!

Champagne might be France’s most famous sparkling wine but it ain’t the oldest – or the most affordable!

They reckon that title goes to the monks of the Saint Hilaire monastery in Limoux in the Languedoc region of southern France, who discovered the secret of creating fizz some 150 years before Dom Perignon (another monk, now quite famous, you might’ve heard of him?).

Limoux is where this little beauty comes from and made by the crew at Antech. All of their wines are hand harvested and produced using the traditional method (aka methode traditionelle, the same way as Champagne) and aged for a minimum of 24 months on lees, a technique used to add richness and creaminess. These guys are also certified ‘Terra Vitis’ – a French national benchmark for sustainable wine production.

This is their Blanquette de Limoux Brut and the star of the show is the Mauzac grape. Mau-what?! Pronounced ‘mow-zack‘ (the locals call it Blanquette) this is Limoux’s most famous grape – and some reckon could be the grape used in that very first sparkling wine!

This stunning value Limoux fizz is 95% Mauzac, 5% Chardonnay and 5% Chenin Blanc. It’s an absolutely gorgeous, dry style (Brut) bubbles full of citrusy, apple and peach flavours.