Petit Manseng

Petit Manseng is a white grape originating in southwest France with its spiritual home thought to be in and around Jurançon.Named after its small thick-skinned berries, it produces loose bunches of intense sugar-rich grapes with little juice and a lot of natural acidity which makes them ideal for delectable sweet wines. It is a tricky grape to grow but has an increasing following now across south-west France and even in the east in Languedoc and the Rhone Valley.Petit Manseng is typically associated in such sweet wines it produces flavours of baked apples, lemon curd, melon, orange marmalade, mango white peach and often a touch of stony minerality.Petit Manseng is certainly well-travelled even if plantings are tiny. You can now find small plantings in Portugal, South Africa, Victoria in Australia, Marlborough in New Zealand and even in Virginia and Georgia, as Petit Manseng’s high acidity suits the warm summers there.