Chinon

I had tried Chinon wines many moons before, in the PWC "Off the Beaten Track in France" tasting during Lent 2007. We returned to this in the latest Loire tasting at the end of last month. This wine also fared well when we finished the remains from the wine dinner the next day. Chinon is a mainly red appellation (which is unusual in the Loire). The reds and the small amount of rose wines are made mainly from Cabernet Franc (up to 10% Cabernet Sauvignon is allowed), whilst a small amount of white is made from Chenin Blanc. A versatile food wine, it had been famous in the past garnering praise from Rabelais, Joan of Arc and Richard the Lionheart amongst others.

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.

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.