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.

A Pinot Noir 90 & above points dinner

I tried something new for may latest PWC dinner and combined two ideas for wine tasting dinners into one. I had done dinners where all the wines are made from a single grape (or at least dominant to the point of being able to labeled as a wine of that variety). I had also done dinners where we tried out a variety of different wines (usually from diverse geographical localities) which had been awarded the same points ( mainly 90, and once 95). This time I modified the latter to set the inclusion criteria to >=90 points ( beginning to sound  like a medical study) whilst tasting only wines made from Pinot Noir.

We had a pink sparkler from New Zealand, but no dessert wines. Still reds came from Oregon, Sonoma, Chile and Argentina for the Americas. We could not miss out Australia and New Zealand. Europe was represented by a Premier Cru Aloxe Corton made by Comte Senard.

A surprisingly "New World" Sancerre

I had this house wine at a family dinner at the China Club the other day. I was delayed and they had already started by the time I arrived. Often you have a glass of wine poured out for you, and one dives into the dinner to catch up and not hold anyone back. So it was a bit like a blind tasting. The one thing that was strange was the deep colour, but I would have sworn that this is an example of Sauvignon Blanc from Australia or New Zealand. Imagine the surprise when I went to take a picture of the bottle for record. Then again, it wasn't the first time when I got things completely the wrong way round with say Loire and New Zealand Sauvignon Blanc; I did it once at a tasting at the Club when the Loire wine was full of exotic fruit flavours whilst the New Zealand example was green and grassy!!

My notes for this Pascal Jolivet Sancerre 2014 was golden yellow with a sweet acid tropical fruit nose,. The palate was sweet acid and fruity palate, well supported by a nice acid backbone.

Chasan

I just found out that I had unexpectedly tasted a grape that I had never tasted before during my Lourdes trip, and that was on the flight back from Paris. I forgot what I had for the meal but decided that I would try the white wine they were offering a Pays d'Oc IGP wine made from Chasan and Chardonnay. It was when I reviewed the pictures that I realised the possibility of the new grape and looking it up, I found that Chasan was a grape created in 1958, and possibly by crossing Chardonnay with Listan (or Palomino, the sherry grape). It is a grape grown mainly in the Languedoc region. Early budding but ripening late, it often does not get the chance to develop complexity and tends to end up in experimental Vin de Pays blends

As for this wine, it was a pale lemon with a slightly sweet fruity nose,. It was sweet acid and fruity on the palate with some nice acid in support.

Revisiting an aged white Rioja after a day

White wines don't age; neither can they survive being opened for long - so goes the accepted wisdom. Well, we did not finished the bottle of 26 year old white Rioja, so I put it back into the refrigerator to consume the next day. Well, I ended up drinking the remainder of the bottle on the third day after opening (day of opening = day 1). It was far from spoilt or dead. The wine remained fragrant and aromatic , with a large smattering of wood as before. The flowery character was less evident but the peachy notes on the palate was more pronounced in mid-palate and towards the end. Like the Coulee de Serrant I has blogged about before, this proves that certain white wines can be aired for a prolonged period.

A white Rioja at 26 years

This is a wine I tasted 5 years ago and I blogged about it then. Five years on, I have come to revisit it and it was still a very nice experience. A friend was treating us to dinner and everyone was taking some wine along. I thought this would be something unusual; after all, I am not sure how many old white wines of this age or more I had drunk. Alright, let us discount the fortified wines first, and maybe the nobly rotten dessert wines next. I did recall tasting a top white Burgundy from the mid 1970s in maybe 2001, which would make it around the same age as this one at tasting. I checked in my Eurocave and noticed another example of this wine from 1981, so that should take the record for aged dry whites when I get around to tasting it.

The wine is now a nice golden yellow, with a fragrant flowery fruity nose. The palate was sweet woody acid with a slight hint of peach, leading onto a good acid backbone (hint still of peach). Comparing notes with some 5 years ago, the wood was less evident on the nose and the vanilla notes were well tempered. The woody fruit evolved into something more peachy with aging. Everyone there was impressed with this veteran.