How to cook Cahors at home? Recipe and history

Cahors is perhaps the most mysterious of wines, surrounded by a certain mystical veil and semi-religious pathos. It is not known what is to blame for this – a gloomy old history, a blood-black color, active use in church rituals – Cahors was and remains a wine that causes at least respect, at a maximum – divine awe. However, all this will by no means prevent us, home-grown magicians-winemakers, from making it with our own hands!

Cahors is one of the oldest wines in Europe, known since ancient times along with the same sherry or port wine. However, if it is not possible to make Spanish sherry or, for example, Portuguese Madeira on your own – the technology is too complicated, then the same cannot be said about Cahors. Today we will talk a little about the history of Cahors, find out what is the difference between Russian Cahors and French Vin de Cahors and, of course, learn how to make Cahors at home!

A bit about the history of Cahors

Looking at the photographs of modern Cahors – a cheerful, green, cozy European town, it is hard to imagine that it was here that the history of the most mystical wine in the world began. Meanwhile, this is the absolute truth. By the XNUMXth-XNUMXth centuries, Vin de Pays du Lot (“the wines of the Lot Valley”) were already well known – the Way of St. James, the famous pilgrimage route, ran through this area. On the way to the Spanish Santiago de Compostela, the believers did not disdain to refresh themselves with delicious Cahors wine – after a long road to the tomb of St. James no longer seemed so tiring.

But the real glory came to Cahors in the XIV century – the city and wine were lucky, because it was here that a certain Jacques d’Huez was born in the family of a shoemaker, who in the future was to become Pope John XXII. Being a real small-town patriot, Jacques imposed Cahors wine for the sacrament of communion on the church – due to its dark bloody color, Cahors was the best suited for the role of “Christ’s blood.” Mass purchases of Cahors began, winemaking in the region began to develop at a more active pace.

I must say that John XXII did not succeed in anything other than popularizing Cahors – his contemporaries spoke of him as extremely intolerant, cruel, and in addition – a superstitious, cowardly and greedy person, on whose orders thousands of “heretics” were burned alive. However, despite all these traits (or perhaps just because of them), Jacques d’Huez lived to be 90 years old, and a huge fortune was found in his mattress – 750 thousand florins. Surely, some of them were accumulated by the pontiff just at the expense of supplies of Cahors.

Cahors reached its peak of popularity in the late Middle Ages – “black wine” from Law was highly valued in England and other European countries. But for some reason, they disliked him at home – the French kings preferred Bordeaux and actively sponsored winemaking in this region. And in the 100th century, the vineyards of Cahors were almost completely mowed down by grape phylloxera, which was brought from North America. Only XNUMX years later, unique cultures were restored to their former volume.

Russian Cahors – a sweet holiday among bitter everyday life

Since the XNUMXth century, the history of Cahors began to develop in parallel, and in the most unexpected place – in Russia. Like many other types of alcohol – for example, kummel – this wine was brought to us by Peter the Great, who tasted Cahors during his European travels (I wonder if he was ever sober there?). As you know, Peter did not favor priests, therefore he imposed on the Orthodox Church precisely the Cahors wine, dear to his heart (and the church treasury), for the sacrament of the Eucharist.

The priests scratched their heads, but they accepted the highest decree – but where to go? For a long time, wines were bought in France, and only then they began to try to cook them on their own. Over time, the production of cahors was put on a grand scale by the church – by the end of the XNUMXth century, it had already become an integral attribute of not only communion, but also any other church holiday. However, things are about the same now.

An interesting fact: French Cahors is a dry wine, although very full-bodied. For the preparation of Cahors, mainly Malbec grapes are used, which do not grow in our country – its content in the must and now should not be lower than 70%. According to the French technology, Cahors is aged for some time at a high temperature – up to 70 °, and only then is sent for fermentation until the sugar is completely fermented. 

Our church winemakers in this way got a complete buzz – either the grapes were not the same, or the technology, or, as always, someone stole something – in general, not comme il faut. So they began to slowly add sugar to the wine – to hide the flaws. As a result, Cahors turned into what we are familiar with – a very sweet, almost cloying wine with a fairly high alcohol content. From the French Cahors, only a high saturation of wine with tannins, tannins and extractives, the aroma of chocolate, cherries and prunes, as well as a very dark, almost black color, remained.

Detailed recipe for homemade Cahors

Using this technology, we will get something in between French and domestic Cahors. We will keep the wort at an elevated temperature, ferment until completely “dry”, on a pure culture of yeast – otherwise nothing. And at the end we will adjust the sweetness and strength to taste with (here’s a surprise!) sugar and alcohol. In any case, the wine will be interesting to cook, albeit troublesome.

Of course, you can’t get malbec in our area, so we take any dark, rich grapes – Cabernet Sauvignon, Saperavi, Pinot Noir, Baco Blanc and others, with a sugar content of at least 20%.

Cooking Cahors at the initial stage is somewhat similar to making homemade beer. And what – the wort is heated in the same way and kept at a certain temperature for a long time – by the way, even the temperature value is almost the same: 60-65 degrees.

At this time, extractive and tannins, tannins pass into the must, due to which the wine becomes dark and saturated, and some modifications of sugars occur, which further contributes to their simpler and more complete fermentation. So for homemade Cahors, a brewery is perfect if you have one. And if not, then any pot with a lid and a couple of warm blankets or sleeping bags.

1. We carefully sort the grapes, separate the berries from the ridges and quickly rinse under running water so as not to lose the juice. Next, carefully crush the berries with a crush or other improvised device.
2. All our red porridge is placed in a saucepan and heated to 60-65 degrees. When the desired temperature is reached, we maintain it for at least 2 hours. After that, the container must be tightly wrapped and let the grapes cool down to 25-30 degrees in a natural way, after which add pre-fermented yeast.
3. For rapid fermentation under a water seal or a glove, the future home-made Cahors is sent directly with the pulp – according to the red method. It usually lasts from 5 to 10 days, depending on the temperature.
4. As soon as the rapid fermentation is over, we remove the young wine from the pulp and sediment, add a pound of sugar for every 10 liters of the resulting liquid and send it for fermentation at room temperature.
5. When the Cahors fermented, we decanted it with a straw and sent it to a cool place for a month so that the fermentation finally stopped and the liquid became as clear as possible. During this time, it will need to be removed from the sediment 2-3 times.
6. Now it’s time to sweeten and, if necessary, fix the drink by adding sugar to taste and / or alcohol at the rate of 25 ml per liter, after which the wine can be bottled for storage in a cool place.

Some technical points are not clear? Read the article with the recipe for grape wine, which describes the winemaking process in more than detail.

Cahors will be ready no earlier than in 4-5 months, before that the wine may not leave the most pleasant impression, but after a long exposure it changes – it acquires the same prunes, chocolate, fruity notes, finally brightens, the taste becomes more rounded, velvety, and the aroma is soft and rich.

Recipe in practice:

As we can see, making Cahors at home is not only possible, but also necessary – you will get, if not a masterpiece, then certainly a worthy product, and along the way – you will gain valuable and interesting experience in making “boiled wine”, one of a kind! We wish you successful experiments!