Chablis

For the last wine club of the season before I take off for California on Sunday (yay!!) and Italy shuts down until September, we ended on a particularly delicious note. We had another big group (19 people were expected) so the budget allowed for us to spend a little bit more. That usually mean I'll take advantage of the chance to taste wine from France, as it is all too easy to get too used to the taste of Italian wine. When we only taste one kind of wine, we can start to think that all wine is supposed to taste that way, which is never a good thing for a wine lover.
 I had thought of trying a few different white Burgundies, but in the end I decided to showcase just Chablis, a subzone in the most northern vineyards of Burgundy. It is so far north, in fact, that it is much closer to Champagne than the rest of Burgundy, and indeed shares the same often extreme climate with that region. All fine white Burgundy comes from the Chardonnay grape, and Chablis is no exception. The cold climate and most of all the soils make these wines quite unique to their cousins from farther south. The best wines come from Kimmeridgean soils, a mixture of limestone and clay with tiny fossilized oyster shells. The lesser vineyards (and in a controversial move, some of the higher appellations were expanded to include these areas) are made up of Portlandien soil, which is very similar to the former but is generally believed to make wines of less finesse.  Chablis is famous for its steely, sometimes austere quality with its high acidity and gunflint, mineral flavors. It is also the one fine wine region for Chardonnay to not commonly employ the use of oak.  While it is not uncommon for an aged Chablis to take on a nutty flavor reminiscent of wine that has been aged in oak, generally speaking oak is not a component in these wines.
There are four different levels of quality to Chablis, here in ascending order: Petit Chablis, on mostly Portlandien soil, Chablis, Chablis Premier Cru, constituting 40 vineyards,  and Chablis Grand Cru, all on Kimmeridge, and composed of seven plots. We tasted mostly Chablis, basic versions of which can be quite austere, with one Petit Chablis and one Premier Cru. (Though the Vau de Vey has only been at this quality level since the vineyard expansion.) For the most part these wines were typical of their kind with very high acidity and very crisp citrus fruit flavors with a mineral note as well. The surprises were the 4th and the 6th, which had very noticeable oak influence. The 4th was pleasant, but the winemaker had perhaps been a bit heavy-handed with the oak, while the last wine presented with lovely subtle oak flavors well balanced by fruit and acidity.
The first three wines were three different versions from one producer, a Petit Chablis, and two different Chablis. The first, far from being too austere had a nice lemon and mineral quality to it. The first Chablis was one of the clear favorites of the evening, sharing those citrus qualities but with a medium body and much more concentration of fruit. The third offering, also a Chablis, comes from old vines and spends nine months in stainless steel. It was very lemony, floral and quite steely on the palate with high, refreshing acidity. The fourth was our surprise of the evening with lots of butter, cedar, hints of clove on top of a bit of pear and citrus. Next we had two wines from the same winery, their basic Chablis and their premier cru. Both were very enjoyable, the first with creamy, yeasty nose from the 12 months it spent on its lees, and a lovely apricot, honey flavor on the palate.  The next spent wine had similar flavors but with the added buttery, vanilla, slightly spicy flavors from its 12 months aging in partial oak and partial steel. The combination added a subtle oak flavor that didn't overwhelm the fruit. It was my favorite, along with our second wine.
The line-up:
1. Petit Chablis Blancs Caillouc 2009 Pascal Bouchard
2. Chablis Le Classique 2009 Pascal Bouchard
3. Chablis Les Vielles Vignes 2008 Pascal Bouchard
4. Chablis Vielle Vigne 2007 Domaine Bernard Defaix
5. Chablis Le Grand Bois 2007 Romain Bouchard Domaine de la Grande Chaume
6. Chablis Premier Cru Vau de Vey 2007 Romain Bouchard Domaine de la Grande Chaume

French Rosè

Rosè again? Well yes, not just because it's that time of year. When we tasted rosès the last time, I was planning on comparing French and Italian wines. Unfortunately a couple of people had to cancel, so I held on to the two French wines I had for another tasting.  This time we had  14 people, so with plenty of money in the budget left over, I picked up a pink Champagne as well, just because.......well, do you really need a reason? We looked at 9 still rosès, and we ended, in celebration of a tour de force tasting, with the bubbly.

As I mentioned in the last post on pink wines, quality still rosès are usually made by a limited maceration (skin contact) time, to absorb color and flavor, but generally not tannin. Good sparklers, on the other hand, blend white and red wines together, sometimes at the very end of the process. Rosès are commonly made with the classic grape varieties of a given area. The south of France is most well-known for their rosès, and the wines are based on the predominant grape varieties in each place, mostly grenace, cinsault, and mouvedre, but increasingly more far-flung grapes as well in the Vin de Pays wines which allow for more flexibility.

We had four wines from the Cote de Provence, one Bandol, one Cabernet d'Anjou, one Gigondas, one Vin de Pays d'Oc, and finally one Champagne. Interestingly, we also had a couple of distinct offerings from two producers, so we were able to look at the different directions producers can take. Even with a wine some dismiss as simple, such as rosè, there is incredible potential for variety. 

From Domaine Houchart, we had three wines, two Cote de Provence, both of which are based mainly on grenache, syrah, cinsault, and mouvedre, and one Gigondas, which is grenache, syrah, and cinsault. Their Sainte Victoire spent four months on its lees and was a step up in complexity from their basic offering with a lovely mineral quality to it, along with bright red fruit. The Gigondas had amazing notes of wild strawberries and a lovely smooth texture.

We also looked at two wines from Domaine Ott, their Bandol and their Cote de Provence from their Les Domaniers estate. The latter had lots of fresh fruit, apricots and peaches, and refreshing acidity, while the former was our most complex wine of the evening, though by far also the most expensive. Coming in at 30 euros, it was more than twice as expensive as the other wines. Grenache, cinsault, and mouvedre are fermented in tanks and then aged for six to eight months in a combination of oak and tank. The resulting wine has very complex notes of stone fruit, grapefruit, and hints of tobacco and spice.

The one exception to the southern rule was our Cabernet d'Anjou, from the Loire in central France. There are three appellations here for rosè, and the Cabernet d'Anjou is of the highest quality. It is made from a blend of cabernet franc and cabernet sauvignon, and is always medium sweet. Ours was well-balanced by its acidity and lots of ripe red fruit.

To cap off the evening we ended with a pink Champagne, based on pinot noir. It was just the thing to wake us up after nine still rosès, brightly acidic with a persistent mousse, fine bubbles, and fantastic toasty, fruity flavors. It was the perfect way to end an interesting evening.

The line-up:

1. Collioure 2009 Les Clos de Paulilles

2. Vin de Pays D'Oc Rosè de Syrah 2009 Beauvignac

3. Cote de Provence 2009 Chateau de la Galiniere

4. Cote de Provence 2009 Domaine Houchart

5. Cote de Provence Sainte Victoire 2009 Domaine Houchart

6. Gigondas 2008 Chateau du Trignon

7. Cote de Provence Les Domaniers 2007 Ott Selection

8. Bandol 2008 Chateau Romassan Domaine Ott

9. Cabernet d'Anjou 2009 Chateau Pierre-Bise

10. Champagne NV Jacques Picard 

Wine of the Week

The other day I met up with my girlfriends for a much needed catch up session. These are always fueled by wine of course, but for one of us (not me obviously!) who had just spent two weeks in the field in Africa, a glass of good red wine was just what she needed. As we’ve been friends for quite some time, I know her palate almost as well as I know mine. She prefers reds, but they must be soft wines, with smooth tannins, light acidity, and lots of fruit. Luckily we were at Cul de Sac, a great little wine bar with a huge wine list, so there were plenty of choices to suit her. Since this wine bar is  one of the few places in Rome with a good selection of foreign wines, I chose a red wine from the Douro region of Portugal. The area was made famous by one of the great fortified wines of the world, which is Port. Though I personally am a big fan of the rich, inky, chocolatey deliciousness in a glass that is this iconic dessert wine, its reputation has suffered with modern wine drinkers, perhaps because of the images of stuffy British gentlemen’s clubs the drink conjures up. At any rate, what has wine industry people buzzing lately are the dry wines from this area. Based largely on the same grapes that go into Port, they offer excellent value with the fruit and concentration of the fortified wine, without the weight and sweetness. We drank the Duas Quintas 2008 from Ramos Pinto. Over 100 grapes are officially sanctioned by the governing body for winemaking in the Douro, but the Duas Quintas blends together three that are considered amongst the best: Touriga Franca, Tinta Roriz (Tempranillo) and Touriga Nacional. The wine is reminiscent of young Port, with spicy and black fruit flavors and silky tannins. Only 20% of the wine is aged in oak, the rest in stainless steel, so the wine feels modern and sleek without being overpowered by the wood. For those of you in Rome, this wine can be had for less than 20 euros at the bar, less if you take it away. For those of you elsewhere, if you can’t find Ramos Pinto, ask your favorite wine shop or restaurant for their favorite Douro non-fortified wine. And if you’ve got a sweet tooth, give Port another try too.

Cin Cin!