Rare Wines Box
From fortification to ice and the sea, we’ve brought together four of the most extraordinary winemaking methods in this box.
With this exceptional selection, you’ll discover some of the most surprising things wine has to offer...
🍷 Please note: Wines or vintages may change depending on availability from our partner winemakers. We’ll update this page accordingly!
Orange wine
- Winery and wine name: Camille Braun, Lune Rousse
- Appellation: Alsace
- Region: France, Alsace
- Grape variety: Gewürztraminer
- Vintage: 2022 (depending on the wine available from our partner winemaker)
- Colour: Orange - An orange-hued wine produced by two weeks of maceration before six months of ageing in a 600-litre oak barrel.
- Colour intensity: Pale and slightly hazy, as is typical of wines aged under a layer of yeast.
On the nose, the wine is very powerful, with pronounced aromas of herbal infusions and dried herbs, alongside citrus fruit, especially mandarin.
- Body: 4/6 - Full-bodied
- Tannins: 1/6 - Smooth
- Sweetness: 2/6 - Medium-dry
- Acidity: 2/6 - Soft
- Alcohol: 4/6 - Warming (14.5%)
- Finish: 5/6 - Long (9–10 sec)
A wealth of aromas: first herbal infusions and flowers — verbena, rose, mint and lavender. Then fruits such as orange, pineapple and mango. Very dry on the palate and slightly tannic, as macerated wines tend to be. A hint somewhere between honey and resin. The finish brings rose water and peppermint, with impressive persistence and length! Original and complex, and tricky to pair with food!
Try it with salmon baked in a salt crust or sesame tuna tataki...
Wine made beneath the sea
- Winery and wine name: Egiategia Cuvée Dena Dela Rouge
- Appellation: Vin de France
- Region: France, South-West, Saint-Jean-de-Luz
- Grape variety: High-altitude Grenache
- Colour: Red - A deep red colour evoking all the depth and velvety richness of cherries.
- Colour intensity: Beautiful red highlights.
A mineral, saline nose with hints of the sea, reflecting the producer’s underwater winemaking. It bursts with salinity, alongside notes of citrus and fresh cherry. Let your imagination run and you can almost smell the sea spray.
- Body: 3/6 - Structured
- Tannins: 2/6 - Well-integrated
- Sweetness: 2/6 - Medium-dry
- Acidity: 5/6 - Sharp
- Alcohol: 3/6 - Generous (14%)
- Finish: 3/6 - Medium (5–6 sec)
A fairly expressive nose, mainly of red fruit and citrus. On the palate, it opens with gentle acidity, followed closely by powerful yet fine tannins. Plenty of fruit and good substance. A touch of sweetness. More mineral, iodine and even saline notes emerge later, along with very fresh cherry aromas.
Roast milk-fed Pyrenean lamb with garrigue herbs and grilled red peppers. This wine will pair perfectly with the tender, flavoursome meat, while its spicy, peppery notes will complement the garrigue herbs and grilled peppers.
Ice wine
- Winery and wine name: Zantho Eiswein
- Appellation: Burgenland Eiswein
- Region: Austria, Weinland, Burgenland
- Grape variety: Grüner Veltliner
- Vintage: 2019 - 2020 (depending on the wine available from our partner winemaker)
- Colour: White - A brilliant gold-and-white wine with green highlights.
- Colour intensity: Beautiful golden brilliance.
The nose is marked by powerful aromas of peach and fresh pineapple, punctuated by subtle notes of honey.
- Body: 4/6 - Full-bodied
- Tannins: 0/6 - None
- Sweetness: 6/6 - Lusciously sweet
- Acidity: 5/6 - Sharp
- Alcohol: 3/6 - Generous (12%)
- Finish: 5/6 - Long (9–10 sec)
On the palate, fruit flavours mingle with a hint of spice, supported by a structure of fine acidity. It is very fresh, with green apple aromas and lovely minerality on the finish.
This is an ice wine: its overripe grapes are harvested after the vines have frozen, pressed while still frozen, then left to ferment. The ultra-concentrated sugar increases further as they thaw, while acidity rises too. The result is a wine with incredible honey-like sweetness, surprising vibrancy and enticing minerality.
Pair it with homemade foie gras, a tart made with tangy fruit or a well-matured cheese...
Fortified wine aged in a glass demijohn
- Winery and wine name: Cazes, Rivesaltes Tuilé
- Appellation: Rivesaltes
- Region: France, Languedoc-Roussillon, Rivesaltes
- Grape variety: Grenache
- Vintage: 1985 - 1986 (depending on the wine available from our partner winemaker)
- Colour: Copper - Seven years in oak have given its bright, luminous colour mahogany tones: a blend of orange, red and copper hues.
- Colour intensity: Bright and luminous.
An intense nose blending spices, coffee and cocoa with the sweetness of candied fruit. Complex aromas of nuts, caramel and roasting rise from the glass.
- Body: 5/6 - Powerful
- Tannins: 0/6 - None
- Sweetness: 5/6 - Sweet
- Acidity: 3/6 - Fresh
- Alcohol: 5/6 - Heady (15%)
- Finish: 6/6 - Very long (11–12 sec)
On the palate, a world of roasted flavours unfolds, from ganache to coffee liqueur, with notes of prune. Roundness, ripe fruit, a hint of dried fruit, and smoky notes of tobacco and roasting. A lovely long finish that fades with freshness.
Strong cheeses (Munster, Maroilles), bitter dark chocolate mousse...
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You love wine, but wine doesn’t love you back. However much you sniff corks for signs of faults, all you can smell is cork. You look but see nothing, sniff but smell nothing, slurp but taste nothing... Is rosé a blend of red and white? There’s a long way to go, but with practice and plenty of tasting, you’ll get there!
You certainly have the desire to become a true master of wine tasting; what you need is practice. You aspire to be a sommelier, no doubt about it, but your senses aren’t quite sharp enough yet and all wines taste much the same. Don’t despair, though: if Bach could become a musical virtuoso despite being deaf, there’s hope that one day you’ll be able to tell a Chardonnay from a Champagne. Train your nose and your taste buds — that’s the only way!
Perhaps you spend too much time deciphering the label and not enough analysing what’s in your INAO tasting glass. But you have a taste for adventure: you’re curious about everything and fearlessly hack your way through the jungle of vines. You make mistakes, lose your way and fall down, but you always get back up. You have the enthusiasm of a budding oenologist: don’t despair, you’re on the right wine route!
You’re an initiate of the order of fine bottles. You may not yet be a grand master of wine tasting, but you have the discipline and curiosity to get there. You might not yet detect subtle yuzu notes at the end of the second sniff of an obscure little wine with pronounced minerality, but you know exactly what you like and what you don’t — and that’s already a lot!
Your tasting precision is almost witchcraft. You must have fallen into an oak barrel when you were little! You’re simply brilliant at the art of wine tasting, well versed in the most advanced techniques, with senses as sharp as a professional sommelier’s. You’ve certainly got plenty of experience under your belt — or should that be plenty of bottles? Absolute mastery is just around the corner!
You’re the Mozart of wine tasting, the Picasso of the cellars of Pommerol, the Einstein of pairing aged Savagnin with Comté matured for 36 months and a sprinkling of salt! One glance is enough for you to tell Mourvèdre from Tannat. Your senses have reached divine heights: you can pick out the most unexpected aromas in any bottle in seconds. You’ve crossed over to the other side: you no longer taste wine, you write its destiny.
For the connoisseurs
Radioactivity can help determine a wine’s age.
To detect counterfeits, it is possible to determine the year a wine’s grapes were harvested by measuring its radioactivity. If the wine is old enough, the vines used may carry tiny traces linked to the first nuclear tests and the Chernobyl disaster.