When I made my last order at Green & Blue, I added a few things to the case that I wouldn't ordinarily order, just to stretch my boundaries. We drank one of them last night, a 2006 Petillant Naturel from Thierry Puzelat. This is a Loire valley sparkling wine made from a grape I had never heard of before, menu pineau. The 'naturel' in the name indicates that the maker uses very low amounts of sulphur in the wine-making process. It is also a low dosage wine.
I wish I could say I loved it, but I didn't. The amber-coloured liquid had a dense, apple and honey flavour, more like a cider than a wine. There wasn't anything particularly wrong with that, but it's not really what I want in a sparkling wine. It also had just a touch of stinky socks on the finish, I wasn't sure I liked that, but it was fleeting. What really disappointed the most were the bubbles. The wine is, at best, effervescent on pouring, and the bubbles quickly disappeared altogether, leaving just the heavy flavour behind. While this was interesting to try once, it really wasn't my thing. But since it was only around £15 for the bottle, I didn't break the bank with my experiment.
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