Sauternes
There are two stories behind the discovery of this delicious sweet wine. But, are either of them true? At the very least, they are interesting. One tells the story of the Marquis of Lur-Saluces who, in 1847, was delayed in returning from a trip. He asked his employees to wait for him before starting the grape harvest. The grapes started to rot, but on his return the marquis still proceeded with the harvest.
The second story tells of a Bordeaux merchant, Focke, who had wanted to wait for the end of the rainy season to start the grape harvest and ended up harvesting grapes that had (once again) started to rot. This was in 1836, not long before the Marquis of Lur-Saluces’s story. Either way, a sweet wine made from semi-rotten grapes was born!