Rivesaltes, L'Archiviste/Domaines et Terroirs du Sud 1955

...Seriously good-value sweet wine antiques that you can drink over quite a time as they retain their fruit and freshness well in an opened bottle...Roussillon around Perpignan just north of the Pyrenees has for decades been most famous with French wine drinkers for its strong sweet wines with names such as Banyuls, Maury and Rivesaltes. These depend mainly on old Grenache bushvines in varying colours of grapes which reach great ripeness in the region’s hot, windy summers. They are typically vinified like port, the grape sugar being retained in the wine by stopping fermentation with added alcohol (particularly strong and pure in this case), and are then aged in wood or glass for very long periods. Some wines here are put into glass bonbonnes and even deliberately exposed to heat as in the Madeira process. The result is a wide range of different strong, sweet wines (vins doux naturels in French) which are virtually indestructible but, while they fit in to a wine drinker’s repertoire very much like a port, they are much rarer than port and many tasters, even quite experienced ones, have little exposure to the various styles on offer. Rivesaltes 1955 - Vigorous tawny colour. Strongly rancio. Envigorating. Round, quite dry, very smooth texture. Real buzz with a slightly dry finish. Nutty, for drinking with cheese? A bit too dry and tart to drink with very sweet things, but a very good, long wine. 16.5 per cent.