Matchuing a Sancerre from Chavignol with Crottin du Chavignol

There's food and wine matching and then there is matching it in some detail. I have always found goats cheese a bit too strong for my liking, that is until I found that having Sauvignon Blanc wines from the Loire, be it Sancerre or Pouilly Fume, tames that flavour and turns the whole combination into a creamy and delicious experience. 

Ever since I found out that Chavignol not only produces some of the best Sancerre, but also a famous goats cheese (Crottin de Chavignol) as well, I have wanted pairing the cheese and wine from the same famous village Having sourced a bottle of Francois Cotat's Sancerre Les Monts Damnes Chavignol, I went in search of the cheese. Luckily it was not too difficult.

The Chavignol wine was a nice straw yellow with a crisp slightly green honeyed nose with a hint of flowers, The palate started off with a touch of sweetness, followed by leafy greeness and a touch of fruit, well supported by minerally acid. The match with the cheese was better than previous attempts with chevre (goats cheese) and Sancerre, with the cheese being more creamy and luscious with the wine. As with other occasions when smelly cheese (and this one is not particularly smelly at that), all were pleasantly surprised at how the wine and the cheese brought them an experience that would certainly be well remembered.

"Longevity" in Loire reds

We did not manage to finish the red wines the other night and since nobody was interested in taking the unfinished bottles home, I finished them off at dinner the next evening. I suppose they would have been opened for the best part of 24 hours and they were just left at room temperature after arriving home, because my fridges as well as my Eurocaves were full.

The Chinon and the Clau de Nell Grolleau both fared better than the Clau de Nell Cabernet Franc. Those two basically maintained their form from the night before, whilst the Cab Franc had shown signs of tiredness, though holding better than quite a few wines I can think of.There was a touch more astringency, but no noticeable increase in acidity, whilst the fruit was only a touch diminished from the night before. All three did better than quite a few wines many times their price.

Exploring the Loire with PWC

PWC met last night for a wine dinner on the theme of Loire wines. A couple of wines arrived late and missed out on the group photo above. We started with a sparkling wine which included the local grape Folle Blanche. The two white grapes of the Loire - Sauvignion Blanc and Chenin Blanc were represented by two wines each. As for reds, there was a Chinon, another Cabernet Franc as well as a red Grolleau, the latter a local red grape more often used in roses.

The highlights of the dinner include matching cheese and wine from the village of Chavignol, a 1971 Coteau du Layon from Domaine Touchais as well as a Coulee de Serrant, which I had opened the night before. These require separate posts to give them justice.

H Billiot Fils Brut Reserve GC Ambonnay

I tasted this champagne at a retirement party for a colleague recently. Unbeknownst to me, I had already tasted one of their vintage wines before, a couple of years ago, and even blogged about it. The wine has a designation of Extra Brut, but the back label specified a dosage of 9g/L sugar (which would make it Brut only). The wine is Pinot Noir dominant with the rest Chardonnay (Pinot Meunier is not grown in Ambonnay). AS the wine is neither filtered not cold stabilized, the back label warns of the possibility that it may deposit crystals during storage.

As for the wine, it was a golden yellow with good streams of medium fine bubbles. The nose was sweet pruney yeasty with acid, and after the acid prickle on entry which subsided into a soft mousse, the palate was crisp and fruity, yielding to an acid backbone.