“Muscat, you say?” (Eyebrow cocked in a full-blown look of suspicion.) “A Brit making wine in the South of France, with a Kiwi no less?”

I’ll fully admit to being suspicious of this one. But it’s an excellent wine. Nathan agreed to the point that we actually saved some for his wife to try later – perhaps that should be its own category: So Good We Restrained Ourselves (SGWRO). I stumbled upon this one at a wine festival in Catalonia in May of 2015. Jonathan (a Brit) and his Kiwi wife Rachel form a stellar partnership at their winery near Perpignan, France. Technically part of Catalonia (the border-spanning cultural region, not the autonomous political region in Spain), Trouillas is in the undervalued (according to Jonathan and Rachel) Roussillon region of France and all the grapes used in Treloar wines are estate-grown.

There’s an interesting back-story to the winery. The couple met while working in finance on Wall Street. After losing some friends in the 9/11 terrorist attacks, the couple saved up some cash and said to hell with it. John took a degree in winemaking from Lincoln University in New Zealand, then finished brief residencies at a couple of Kiwi wineries before heading to their own plot in the South of France.

The back-story should give a few hints as to the fruit notes you can expect in their dry Muscat. It’s definitely a summery drinking wine that I would happily substitute any time the occasion called for a Kiwi Sauvignon Blanc, Rueda-Verdejo, Albariño, or just plain excellent crisp, dry white. I can’t wait for their wines to be available in the US and am truly lamenting the bottle I left behind in Barcelona.