November 16, 2014 - Recent Wine Notes and Pairings

Hi, everybody.  Welcome back to Cépage et Cuisine, Mary's and Brian's blog about wine, food, and culture. I often post brief wine notes at Twitter, which you can see if you follow us on Twitter at Cépage et Cuisine. I thought I would post a series of recent wine notes here on the blog, including a little more detail than the 140 character limit of Twitter, and some comments about food pairings. You may or may not be able to find the exact wines I describe, but the comments about the style and the pairings might be useful with similar wines and food pairing considerations.

German wine labels are famously hard to interpret. The producer is Domdechant Werner. Weingut means winery. Seit 1780 im familienbesitz means family owned since 1780. Hochheim is a village in the Rheingau region. Kirchenstück is a specific vineyard, which means that all the grapes for this wine come from that single vineyard. Riesling is the grape variety, of course. Spätlese is the ripeness level of the grapes on a scale that begins at Kabinett at the low end (our favorite), then Spätlese, then Auslese, then the sweet, dessert-style Rieslings. Trocken means the wine is fermented dry, that there is little or no residual sugar to add sweetness. The vintage is 2005, the year the grapes were harvested, so it has had nine years of aging when we opened it recently.

This is a delightful wine, clean, refreshing, great with food. It is aromatic of lime citrus, peach, and stony minerality.  The palate is briskly acidic for excellent tension, medium body, a dry style with very nice citrus, stone fruit, excellent minerality. It is beautifully balanced, moderately complex, with a medium length of finish. A spätlese trocken, it is only 12.0% alcohol, despite being pretty much bone dry.  We bought it at auction for $35. We paired it with a seasoned pork tenderloin, cooked outdoors on the grill on medium heat for about 20 minutes, with sides of baked apples, picked just days ago nearby in Michigan, sauerkraut, and pinto beans. The pairing is a good example of the versatility of Riesling. It does well with all the usual white wine pairings, but also pairs wonderfully with some meats such as this pork dish.

Chateau de La Dauphine is a right bank Bordeaux from the small town of Fronsac. Like most wines of Fronsac, it is mostly Merlot, 90% in this case. The remaining 10% of the blend is Cabernet Franc. This wine brings back happy memories for us because we visited La Dauphine back in May. Our visit is described in an earlier blog post.

Here's a photo of the chateau. Fronsac wines are not as prestigious as they were many years ago, which means they are a relative value when compared to Saint Émilion or other more famous areas. This was only $20 when we bought it several years ago. 

The clay and limestone soils of Fronsac are well suited to Merlot. The wines are rounder and fleshier than Cabernet-based blends. For many consumers, they are more approachable when young. This particular bottle is a 2001 vintage, which means it had 13 years of aging when we opened it a few weeks ago. I think it is just at its peak of enjoyment right about now, but probably won't get any better. I have one more bottle, so we'll find a nice occasion to open it pretty soon.

Here are my notes from the evening we opened it.  It's a beautiful, lovely, elegant wine with both power and finesse. It is aromatic of dark fruit, cedar, and herbs. The bottle had thrown quite a bit of sediment, but the wine was silky smooth, medium in body, with great freshness. Red and dark berries, cherry, and savory herbs comprised the flavor profile. It is beautifully balanced, moderately complex, and had good length. At 13.0% alcohol, we could enjoy a couple of glasses without feeling tired afterward. What a nice wine it is. 

Mary was in the mood for a nice steak, so even on a regular Wednesday evening, we grilled a couple of cuts of filet mignon to a nice medium with garlic mashed potatoes and a crunchy green salad. Here's a little tip. Merlot is especially well suited for pairing with lean cuts of meat. Although a Cabernet-based wine or Syrah would certainly not be a mistake, they are especially good with more marbled cuts like a ribeye.

I've had this bottle in our storage for several years. The producer is Viñedos y Bodegas Sierra Cantabria in the Rioja region of north-central Spain. The specific vineyard is Amancio and the vintage is 2004, so it has 10 years of aging. It is 100% Tempranillo, the signature grape of Rioja.

Spanish winemakers are trying to decide the best way to grow and vinify their grapes and to satisfy a global market, so they're in a bit of a state of flux at the moment. Some producers follow the traditional path and others, like this one, produce a bold, ripe style. For fans of the style, that's fine, but for us, very ripe, high alcohol wines don't have the distinctiveness and elegance of wines with better balance. To us, they lose the uniqueness of the grape variety and the place where they are grown. They taste like just another big red wine. At 14.5% alcohol, it's hard to finish the bottle between the two of us without feeling sluggish and tired. Plus, all the oak barrel influence and very heavy, modern bottle packaging makes it expensive. This wine cost $65, a lesson learned.

I wrote that it was aromatic and flavored of chocolate, oak, and ripe, black plum, not distinct, drinkable but glad to get it out of the inventory. It is an example of why we have very little Spanish red wine in our collection nowadays. I know there are wonderful wines still available from Spain and we're on the lookout for them, but shop carefully and buyer beware.

On the bright side, dinner that evening was a Cuban dish called picadillo, which was sensational! It is ground meat, seasoned with lots of garlic, herbs, cumin, peppers, onions, olives, and raisins, served with white rice and black beans. We must post a blog note about picadillo. Mary says it's easy and it is definitely delicious.

That's our post for today. We hope you enjoyed it. Thanks for reading us at Cépage et Cuisine. Don't forget you can also follow our nightly wine Tweets (well, most nights) on Twitter by the same name. In the meantime,

Cheers!

Brian♥Mary