Hi, everybody. Bonjour, tout le monde! Welcome again to Cépage et
Cuisine, Mary’s and Brian’s blog about wine, food, culture, people,
and geography.
Today we said a fond
farewell to Burgundy and transferred to Champagne for a few days, one of the
few major wine regions of France we haven’t experienced. We planned a stop in Chablis on the way for
tasting a little wine and having lunch at a familiar restaurant.
We drove to Chablis in a
cold, drizzly rain. I scheduled a visit
to Domaine Fourrey in the village of Milly (don’t even try to pronounce the
village name … the American mouth cannot form this sound).
We’ve never tried their
wine, but I have read some good press about this producer. Plus, Chablis is Mary’s favorite
Chardonnay. I agree with her that it is
the most distinctive expression of Chardonnay, at least that we’ve experienced.
Along with the climate,
the Kimmeridgian soil, composed of thin limestone and fossilized seashells,
creates a very specific style of wine.
The chalky soil is evident everywhere, from the dust on the street and
buildings to the soil in the vineyards.
In bright sunlight, the town practically radiates light.
Chablisienne, as the
folks of Chablis are known, don’t manipulate the wine very much with new oak so
that the character of the appellation and the vineyard sites shows through.
The cellar master, Jean-Luc Fourrey, lives on the property with his family. He is joined in the business by his sister,
Marie-Jo (pronounced Mary Jo), who greeted us today. Their parents are still involved in the
business. They own 20 hectares of
vineyards, 50 acres, almost all in Chablis.
Like the rest of Burgundy, they were hit by the late-April freeze and
will lose about 50% of their crop in 2016.
Jean Luc and Marie-Jo
have invested heavily in renovating their cellars and production equipment over
the past few years. Here you see their
newly renovated cellar. Like many
Chablis producers, they use very little new oak, but use some neutral oak to
make the wines a little softer and rounder.
Here are their
fermentation tanks.
Marie-Jo tasted us
through their range of wines, beginning with petite Chablis, which is Chablis
that is not on Kimmeridgian soil.
We
then tasted Chablis village, three Chablis premier cru, and a Vaudesir grand
cru. They were all true to the character
of the region with differences in density and complexity as we advanced up the
scale. We took a bottle with us to enjoy
later.
Here is the view from the
top of the Les Clos grand cru vineyard.
We’ve been up here several times to enjoy the view and to see the
vineyard up close, walk in it a little.
I was interested to see
if there are any immature clusters on the vines. Happily, it looks like there will be at least
some crop set. From where I was walking,
I couldn’t see the freeze damage in any obvious way, but it is likely that
vineyard workers have already pruned off the damaged growth.
Lunch was at Bistrot des Grands
Crus in the heart of Chablis, then we were on our way.
When we have time we like
to stay off the autoroute and take the backroads instead. Slowing down, driving through the countryside
through the small towns makes the trip much more interesting. Chouarce is typical of such a place, small
enough that it is just a dot on the road map, big enough to have a little
restaurant L’Auberge sans Nom, the No
Name Inn.
It was sunny in Chouarce
and I drove around to find a shady place to park because we had the bottle of
Fourrey in the car. I parked next to the
church and here’s where the serendipitous interesting cultural part begins.
The church is Eglise
Saint-Jean-Baptiste, built in the late 1100s and early 1200s and now considered
an extraordinary example of churches of medieval France.
Inside are dozens of sculptures and images more
than 500 years old, making it essentially an incredible museum of fine
art. Imagine it!
This handwritten
parchment manuscript and music notes is on display behind glass in the church, the doors from
the street unlocked, everything open to interaction up close, all the
sculptures and paintings, no cost of admission, nobody else in the place, no
staff or security, just us, a couple of Americans wandering around the French
countryside. The manuscript is from the
1500s, at least 200 years older than the American Declaration of
Independence. Seeing this church is one
of the highlights of the trip.
And you know what? There are amazing churches and other
structures like this all over the place, unknown to the casual tourist until we just drive up to them.
The history is so old, it makes us realize how young we are as a country
in the U.S.
Ok, on the road again, we
arrived an hour or so later at our Champagne destination. Our village … I kid you not … is Bouzy. The irony of a town named Bouzy in a wine
region is hilarious, but it is not pronounced “boozy.” It is pronounced Boo-ZEE.
Here’s a map to tell you
where we are. The red teardrop arrow is
Bouzy. The Champagne region is not far
at all from Paris, less than 100 miles.
After checking into the
gite and on the recommendation of our host, Mathilde Weber, we headed to the
next village, Ambonnay, for dinner at Auberge St. Vincent. We enjoyed sitting on the terrasse and ordering a bottle of
vintage Champagne from a producer right there in Ambonnay, Champagne Jean
Moreau.
Most Champagne is
non-vintage, which means that wine from more than one vintage is blended to
create a consistent house style. When
the producer decides that a particular vintage, a year of harvest, is
especially good, a vintage is declared and wine is produced and labeled from
that year only. Our choice tonight was a
2008 vintage.
This particular wine is
mostly pinot noir, which conveyed some notes of berry fruit flavors along with
the typical Champagne freshness, crispness, citrus, and baked bread
character. We both liked that element of
complexity and felt it complemented food nicely. That’s a good first lesson about Champagne. It doesn’t have to be limited to celebration
occasions. It can also be a good wine
with dinner and paired with food.
A delicious first
course was smoked salmon on asparagus and other spring vegetables with a light
Champagne cream sauce.
Mary had the menu
special, papillote de dorade au fenouil. Dorade is a fish that is common in France,
baked in parchment with fennel and Champagne sauce.
I had a trout, stuffed
with celery remoulade and a zucchini stuffed with vegetables.
Here’s Mary’s tiramisu.
And my cheese course.
That’s our post for
today. Dinner at St. Vincent was a nice
introduction to Champagne. Thanks again
for reading us at Cépage et Cuisine. Keep checking back for more posts about our
wine, food, and cultural adventures.
We’ll be here for a few days, then moving on to Germany. In the meantime,
Cheers!
Mary♥Brian
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