Banyuls

Banyuls is a fortified sweet red wine — a vin doux naturel — from the steep, schist-terraced vineyards of the Cote Vermeille in French Catalonia, where Roussillon meets the Mediterranean and the Spanish border. Built around old-vine Grenache Noir, it is made by mutage: neutral grape spirit is added partway through fermentation to kill the yeast, halting it while a generous load of natural grape sugar remains, and lifting the wine to around 16 percent alcohol. The result is rich, warming and port-like — dark, sweet and structured, tasting of black cherry, fig, prune and cocoa, and famous as one of the few wines that genuinely flatters chocolate. Aged in glass demijohns in the sun or in old barrels, it can take on the prized oxidative "rancio" character of coffee, walnut, dried fig and caramel. It is the sweet-red counterpart to neighbouring Maury and a benchmark of southern French dessert wine.