de Venoge

The de Venoge Princes Blanc De Noir, in this elegant bottle, is my favorite. If you can find the bottle, I highly recommend you give it a try. The bottle is styled after crystal wine decanters of the early 1900s that the wealthy used to decant champagne. The champagne style, blanc de noir (my favorite style), is derived from the wine being produced solely from black skinned (red) grapes. In this instance, de Venoge uses 100% Pinot Noir grapes. By removing the dark grape skins after pressing out the grape juice, the wine retains only the light color.

It has won numerous awards due to it’s rich, balanced, complex and fresh taste. In France it costs about $65, but expect to pay in the $85-100 range if available in the United States. Generally wine shops in the NY region have it in stock and are willing to ship it to most states.

The photo above was just taken, if you are curious as to what stage the grapes are in at this time of the year. The harvesting of the grapes takes about 3 weeks, entirely done by hand, and usually occurs in September but dates can vary.