Banyuls is a naturally sweet dessert wine from a region in France. It is made from grenache grapes and aged in oak barrels for up to eight years. The fermentation process is stopped to ensure the sweet taste, and up to 10% pure alcohol is added to fortify the wine. Appellation laws ensure the wine’s quality and origin.
Considered a naturally sweet wine, or vin doux naturels, Banyuls is a type of dessert wine from a southwestern region of France. An appellation, a Banyuls wine is any of several sweet wines from the region in or near the town of Banyuls-sur-Mer. Banyuls is considered one of France’s finest and most complex wines.
Produced on just 2,500 acres of vineyard, Banyuls wine is most often red, but also comes in blush and white varieties. In general, the wine has a fresh taste, with fruity or sweet coffee tasting. Red, in particular, goes well with chocolate or other sweet desserts.
Banyuls wines mainly use grenache grapes. The grapes are harvested in early autumn. The grapes used for the red wines are processed whole, with the skins and seeds intact. Those used for blush and white wines have the skins and seeds removed before they are processed.
Aged in barrels, the wine is placed in oak barrels for a year or more. Many varieties can go closer to eight years of aging. Some wines are aged in an oxidation process, then placed in barrels with one end open to the air. These wines are often referred to as rimage.
Normally the fermentation process converts the sugars present in the grapes into alcohol. The more sugars that are reduced, the drier – and less sweet – the resulting wine. In Banyuls wines, the fermentation process is stopped when the alcohol level is around six percent. Called mutage, adding alcohol or pure grape spirit, wine stops the fermentation process while there are still sugars in the wine. By using this process, winemakers ensure the sweet taste of their wines.
Banyuls is a fortified wine. In fortified wines, alcohol is added during one stage of their creation. Up to 10 percent pure alcohol is added to the wine to bring the wine’s overall alcohol content to its normal target of 15 percent.
In 1936, laws were passed establishing how Banyuls wines could be produced. Called appellation laws, these laws were designed to ensure that the wines were always of the same quality and that no one outside the region could claim to produce a Banyuls wine. In addition to limiting where this wine could be produced, some examples of the appellation laws include the prohibition of any type of irrigation system in vineyards and the growing of fruit trees on the same land as the vineyards.
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