Burgundy - How to Make Sense of it All

Hi, folks, welcome back to Cepage et Cuisine, Mary's and Brian's wine and food blog.  Take a look at this label photo, study it carefully, think about it.  Can you make sense of it?

Well, it's a red Burgundy.  In some ways, understanding Burgundy is easy.  In other ways, it seems impossible.  It's easy because there are basically two grapes, one red, one white.  Red Burgundy is Pinot Noir, white is Chardonnay.  Most French wine labels do not include the name of the grape on the label, which makes things harder for many American consumers.  You just have to know that if it's Burgundy and it's red, it's Pinot Noir and if it's white, it's Chardonnay.

Let's quickly review levels of quality in Burgundy.  The first level is Bourgogne, the lowest level.  This means the grapes can be grown anywhere in Burgundy.  That's the label in the photo at left.  Take another look and you see that Pinot Noir does, in fact, appear on this label.  Some Burgundy producers are including the varietal name on the label of lower-level wines to make things easier to understand for many consumers.

The next level is village.  The name of the village appears on the label.  The grapes have to be grown in that village, but can come from any vineyard or combination of vineyards in the village.  The label photo on the left is an example.  On this label you see the name of the village, Gevrey-Chambertin.  Below the village name you see the words, "Appellation Controlée."  That means the appellation, or the demarcated growing area, is the village of Gevrey-Chambertin.  The producer is Domaine Henri Perrot-Minot.

The next level up is Premier Cru.  Now we're getting into some top vineyard sites.  Usually, the bottle will be labeled with the village and the name of a specific vineyard with the designation "Premier Cru" or "1er Cru."  Only about 10% of all Burgundy wines are Premier Cru.  Prices are higher than for many village wines.  Here's an example.

The village is Saint-Aubin.  Just below the village designation you see the name of the specific vineyard from which the grapes were harvested, Les Pitangerets.  Just to the left of the vineyard name, you see the 1er Cru, indicating the Les Pitangerets vineyard is a Premier Cru.  The appellation is Saint-Aubin 1er Cru Controlée.



The very top level is Grand Cru.  These wines are the rarest, most expensive Burgundies.  Only the specific vineyard name is indicated on the label.  These vineyards are considered of such exceptional quality that the vineyard is its own appellation, unique, distinctive, special.  Only about 2% of all wines from Burgundy have this designation.  As you might expect, these wines are scarce and the prices can be stratospheric.  Here's an an example of a Grand Cru label from our cellar.

You see the name of the vineyard, Clos de la Roche, and the Grand Cru designation.  The appellation is simply this single vineyard, considered sufficiently distinct to be different from any other vineyard.  Clos de la Roche is located in the village of Morey-Saint-Denis, but the village name appears nowhere on the label.  All eyes are on the specific vineyard site.  Grand Cru wines are not meant for casual consumption.  They can provide great pleasure and fascination, but they demand conscious attention.  They demand something of the consumer at the same time they give to the consumer.

Now back to the basic Bourgogne.  The Bouchard Bourgogne is what inspired this post in the first place.  We want to emphasize that basic Bourgogne can be delicious, food-friendly, and affordable, especially in a classic vintage like 2005.  Here are my notes on this wine.

Bouchard Père et Fils, Bourgogne, 2005.  A splendid Bourgogne, proving that low-level Burgundies in great years can still be very good wines.  It was pretty from the bottle, a medium ruby color, with aromas of cherry, earth, and mineral notes.  The palate showed fine grained tannins, still plenty of life to live, high acidity, and bright red cherry fruit.  It is nicely balanced, not tremendously complex, but a perfectly satisfactory Pinot Noir.  12.5% alcohol.  We paid $15 for this wine.

That's it for today's post.  Check back for more entries on Cepage et Cuisine.  In the meantime,

Cheers,

Brian and Mary

Producer and Wine Highlight: Wing Canyon Vineyard

Hello and welcome again to Cèpage et Cuisine, Brian's and Mary's wine and food blog.  Today, we're highlighting the fine folks and outstanding wines of our friends at Wing Canyon Vineyard, high above Napa Valley, California on the steep slopes of Mt. Veeder.  Bill Jenkins and Kathy Dennett own Wing Canyon, farm the land, grow the grapes, make the wine, and live in a solar-powered home on the property.  Years ago when we were first starting our wine hobby, Mary and I somehow discovered Wing Canyon, telephoned and asked if we could visit, and they graciously accepted.

Bill and Kathy acquired the property in the early 1980s.  Bill literally cleared land for the vineyard, built a rammed earth home and winery, designed by themselves, planted Cabernet Sauvignon, Cabernet Franc, Merlot, and Chardonnay, and began producing wine in 1991.  The vineyard has been farmed sustainably from the beginning, about 10 acres planted.  They are good stewards of their land, doing things their way.  To say the property is rugged is an understatement.  When we visit them, which is always a highlight of our trips to the wine country of California, we have to hike to the house from Mt. Veeder Road or they have to come out to pick us up in their four-wheel drive vehicle.  They are not a big-name Napa Valley producer.  Their entire production is under 1,000 cases of wine per year.  Here's a Google map of the area to give you a better idea of their location, marked with a red arrow.  Click on the map for an enlarged view.

You can see Wing Canyon is located near the southern end of Napa Valley.  Mt. Veeder is part of the Mayacamas range on the west side of the valley, separating Napa County and Sonoma County.  Its elevation and proximity to the cool breezes of San Pablo Bay keep temperatures cooler and allow gradual ripening of the grapes.  Here are a couple of satellite photos to give you an idea of the ruggedness of the terrain.  In the closeup view, you can see the vineyard plots on the Napa Valley floor on the right.  Once again, click on the images for an enlarged view.

Grapegrowing under these conditions is hard work, for both man and vine.  The grapes are stressed by the poor, thin soil, forcing them to send their roots deep for the nutrients they require.  In addition, Bill dry farms, which means the vines are not irrigated.  Yields are low but, typical of mountain grown grapes, the berries are intensely flavored with excellent structure and producing wines capable of long cellaring.  Check out these babies, Cabernet Sauvignon first, then Chardonnay.

We've enjoyed all of their wines, but today I'm especially highlighting the Chardonnay.  They make only a little, some of which is reserved for Kathy because she loves it, so not much is available for sale.  I think they only made one barrel of the most recent vintage, which is about 25 cases, but let me tell you, it is fantastic Chardonnay.  We have a few bottles of the 2005, which we are consuming slowly to see how it evolves.  Here's a label photo, taken by Mary.

Here are my tasting notes on this amazing wine.
This is a wonderful wine, even profound.  I am an unapologetic Francophile and I think a good white Burgundy is a thing of beauty.  This wine is every bit as good as any Burgundy I have tasted, but a little different in expression, reflecting where it was grown, but complex, balanced, interesting.  When we first opened it, we immediately noticed a melange of aromas, a wonderful caramel, almost like crème brulée, yellow tree fruit like peach, maybe even banana, and a fascinating lemon, not a racy, tart lemon, but more a lemon creme, even a lemon meringue.  Wow, this is great!  And that's just the initial aromatic impression.  The palate shows first of all an exquisite balance.  All elements are in proportion ... bright acidity, flavor characteristics, and alcohol.  Not too much of anything.  In particular, not too much oak character.  Kathy described the lemon flavor during one of our visits as "lemony snickets," but this wine is keeping no secrets, unlike the famous author who uses this pen name.  The flavor is not powerfully citrusy, but it definitely has a joyful lemon creme quality, along with lovely butterscotch and peach qualities.  We tried to make the wine last as long as possible.  I'm taking my last sip as I type this, more than two hours after opening.  The texture is full, creamy, with medium acidity, and flavors of caramel, butterscotch, lemon creme, and peach.  On the long finish, there is a curious intensity I have noted previously with this wine, approaching a bitter almond or a spruce needle, evergreen quality.  I timed the length after swallowing at over a minute, extraordinary for a Chardonnay.  To Bill Jenkins and Kathy Dennett, I say simply, thank you.  If you intended to produce a wine that would please your own palate, but would also please others and express your creativity with what nature has given you, you accomplished your goal.  I still have a few of these in my cellar, but I will open them slowly to see how they evolve.  Balanced, complex, long finishing, outstanding.  The next time we drink one of these, I plan to decant it before drinking.  13.0% alcohol.

We paired the wine with steelhead salmon, cooked on the grill with a little herb seasoning, spritzed generously with fresh lemon juice, oven-roasted Brussels sprouts, and a crunchy green salad first course.  It was a simple meal, but simply delicious.

A couple of final remarks about Wing Canyon.  Their prices are reasonable, not the Alice in Wonderland prices of so many Napa Valley producers.  We paid $35 for the Chardonnay.  Second, Kathy is a gifted painter, creating hex sign art that is a reflection of her Pennsylvania Dutch heritage.  Check out her work at http://www.wingcanyonvineyard.com/.  Here's an example.

That's our post for today.  I'll talk about other favorite producers and their wines in future posts.  If you are in Wine Country and want to support real people who farm their land and make their wines, not the Disneyland of Highway 29, think about Wing Canyon.  Bill and Kathy, here's to you,

Cheers,
Brian and Mary

Wine Highlight: Savennières

Hi, everybody.  Welcome again to Cèpage et Cuisine, our wine and food blog.  Today, I'm highlighting Savennières, a wine from the Loire Valley in northwestern France.  The village of Savennières is about 200 miles southwest of Paris, not far from the Atlantic coast.  Here's a map to help you get oriented.  Click on it for an enlarged view.  Savennières is indicated by the red teardrop arrow.

The white grape of Savennières is Chenin Blanc.  Wines from this grape are made in a variety of styles throughout the Loire Valley (see our previous post on Bonnezeaux, a sweet version of Chenin Blanc).  Chenin Blanc from Savennières is a dry white wine, sometimes austere and steely.  It is built for aging and although it can be consumed young, it really needs a few years to show itself.  It is not exactly what I would call a beginner's wine, but it can be lovely with wonderful floral, mineral, and tropical notes.  Here's a link to a video about Domaine du Closel, a Savennières producer with a long history of women winemakers from a single family.

http://www.winespectator.com/video/index/playerid/315932961/lineupid/823481591/titleid/876416882

Here in Jackson, we don't have a large selection of Savennières, but we do have some excellent examples.  My favorite producer of Savennières is Domaine des Baumard and this is the wine we're highlighting today.  This is a 2002 vintage from Baumard, just reaching an excellent drinkability after eight years.  It is a straight Savennières, not from a single vineyard, and is an excellent example of the appellation.  The image above is from the Baumard website.  You can see the soil is very rocky.

A dry Chenin Blanc such as this pairs wonderfully with seafood.  One of the ideal pairings is with scallops.  Mary prepares a Provençal scallop dish which is delicious with Savennières. We don't have a photo, but here's Mary describing the basics of the dish.

Large bay scallops are sliced and sauteed in butter with onion. They cook up very quickly and are finished off with white wine in the pan, then Swiss cheese sprinkled on the top and broiled for just a couple of minutes. Served over pasta, it's delicious!

Brian's notes on the wine, Domaine des Baumard Savennières 2002:

I love this wine.  It is austere in its structure with intense minerality and high acidity, very bony, but it is complex in its aroma and flavor profile and pairs wonderfully with food.  The aroma shows lemon citrus, tropical notes of peach and floral honeysuckle, perhaps other flowers, pebbly minerality, and a smoky almond character.  The palate is full, creamy like a white Burgundy, but with a different structure and no evidence of prominent oak.  Lemon, like a lemon creme, stony mineral notes, and something more tropical are there.  The classic profile of Savennières is quince fruit, but I have never experienced this fruit.  It is wonderfully balanced, complex, and long finishing, especially for a white wine.  It needs time in the bottle to show itself.  This was a 2002 and could actually benefit from even more time.  A wonderful wine.  13.0% alcohol.  We paid $25 for this wine.  The current vintage is sometimes available at Colony Wine Market in Madison and Briarwood Wines and Spirits in Jackson.

That's our post for today.  Hope you like the blog and keep coming back.  In the meantime,

Cheers!

Brian and Mary

Asian Food and Wine

Hello, everybody.  Welcome back to Cèpage et Cuisine.  Today, I'm talking about pairing Asian food and wine.  I find that white wines, especially the wines of Alsace, are ideal for this cuisine.  My favorite is Riesling.  Whether paired with the spicy food of Thai cooking or other traditional dishes such as sushi, shashimi, or stir fry, Riesling is right for the job.  Mary recently whipped up a simple shrimp stir fry with whatever vegetables we had in the house.  I picked a straightforward Alsace Riesling by Domaine Trimbach to pair with the dish.

Looks delicious, doesn't it?  Well, it is!  Here's Mary, talking about this easy dish, perfect for a weeknight when you want to get something on the table quickly.

I buy shrimp already peeled and deveined at the seafood counter. I sauté it very quickly over high heat in a little olive oil.  Same thing with veggies of your choice.  This particular night I used asparagus, onion, and sliced water chestnuts. I made a sauce of lemon juice, lemon zest, and soy sauce.  We really prefer Nishiki sushi rice over regular long-grain white rice.  That's it!  Couldn't be easier (unless I send Brian out to fetch me a really nice wok!).  I love Riesling with this dish!  Here's Brian talking about it ~

Riesling is produced in a variety of styles around the world.  The typical style of Riesling from the Alsace region in extreme northeastern France is bone dry.  It retains a lovely freshness with citrus and tree fruit qualities and is perfect for the light and spicy flavors of Mary's stir fry.

Trimbach is one of the oldest and most well-known producers in Alsace.  They offer a variety of traditional Alsace whites such as Riesling, Pinot Gris, Pinot Blanc, and Gewürztraminer.  The Riesling typically sees no oak barrel, so freshness and purity of fruit are preserved.  Here are my notes on the wine:

Domaine Trimbach Riesling Alsace 2006.  The 2006 vintage was considered mediocre in Alsace, but we really enjoyed this wine.  Built in a dry style with refreshing mineral notes of a nicely balanced Riesling, the wine had lovely peach, lime citrus, and minerality on the nose.  The palate was clean, refreshing, had bracing acidity, bone dry, and mostly citrus fruit flavor characteristics, lemon and lime.  Light-bodied, well balanced, very fresh, modest complexity, medium finish, enjoyed completely with shrimp stirfry.  12.5% alcohol.  We paid $20 for this wine, which is widely available in good wine shops.

That's it for today.  Check back for more blog posts on wine and food.  In the meantime...

Cheers!
Brian♥Mary

Poulet Rôti et Pinot Noir

Hello, everyone, here we are with another wonderful food and wine experience.  Take a look at this photo and start smacking your lips.

Mary and I have been experimenting and gaining experience with whole roasted chicken.  It doesn't sound all that exciting.  After all, it's just....chicken.  What we've discovered, though, is its wonderful simplicity.  Roasting the whole bird is so much better than cooking pieces that have already been cut when you buy them.  Our friend, Julia (Julia Child, of course...we channel her when we're cooking), says...and I quote..."You can always judge the quality of a cook or a restaurant by roast chicken.  While it does not require years of training to produce a juicy, brown, buttery, crisp-skinned, heavenly bird, it does entail such a greed for perfection that one is under compulsion to hover over the bird, listen to it, above all see that it is continually basted, and that it is done just to the proper turn."  Julia is my kind of girl.

We had no experience with cooking whole birds until recently.  We both had to study carving technique and acquire a good quality carving and boning knife (Wüsthof Grand Prix II 8", Williams-Sonoma, $69.95).  It really isn't difficult.  Success is in attention to the details, especially the basting.  Here's Mary talking about the key steps.

I started with a fresh roasting chicken, just a little over 4 pounds. I bought fresh rosemary, but you could use whatever fresh herbs you want. I already had butcher's twine and, of course, Butter! I rinsed the chicken, patted it dry, and stuffed the cavity with the rosemary and a couple of tablespoons of butter. I ran my fingers between the skin and the breast and put more butter in there along with some sprigs of rosemary. Then I trussed the chicken (legs and wings)!

The chicken sits on a rack over a bed of fresh vegetables: sliced onion, carrot, and some rosemary sprigs. Butter the outside of the chicken and salt and pepper. Put in the oven preheated to 425 degrees.

Basting is very important to a juicy, properly cooked bird.  I use a bulb baster.  The basting liquid is a combination of melted butter and olive oil and the chicken drippings. Julia says to baste every 10 minutes.

Let the chicken rest for 5-10 minutes to cool and preserve the juices. Then it's ready for carving!  Brian does that part!

I made chicken stock from the carcass of the last chicken we roasted. Then I used that stock to make gravy. Freshly-made homemade stock is SO much better than canned "broth"! We had simple side dishes of mashed potatoes and green beans. Doesn't sound fancy, and it's not, but ... WOW! ... how delicious!

Brian here -- This dinner would pair wonderfully with Chardonnay or a Southern Rhone white wine, but we enjoyed it with Au Bon Climat Pinot Noir Santa Barbara County 2003.  I wrote an earlier post on Au Bon Climat Chardonnay.  This wine is the basic Au Bon Climat Pinot Noir. It is well-balanced with great structure, not all that complex, equivalent to village level Burgundy, but perfectly delicious with a variety of dishes. The aroma profile showed cherry, spices, a subtle earthiness, and crushed autumn leaves. The palate showed medium acidity, excellent balance, a silky smooth texture, medium body. The flavors were fresh, bright red cherry, a bit of cinnamon, and a little earth. Balanced, moderately complex, medium length, an altogether nice wine experience at a good value. 13.0% alcohol.  We paid $30 for this wine, but the current vintage costs about $21.

That's it for today's post.  Check back soon for more wine and food adventures!
Cheers!
Brian♥Mary

Vin et Dessert de Fromage

Hello, wine and food friends.  Mary and I are visiting my family in Georgia for the holiday weekend.  We are enjoying the hospitality of my sister and her husband, Kaye and Glenn, in their home.  Kaye enjoys dessert-style wines, so I proposed a wine and cheese dessert experience.

I happened to have a bottle of Chateau de Fesles Bonnezeaux 1997 in my inventory left over from a June event at our home called White Wines of the Loire Valley. Here's the label.

Bonnezeaux is a village in the Loire Valley in northwestern France.  You can see where it is in the map below, marked with the red teardrop arrow, with Paris to the northeast and the Atlantic Ocean to the west.

Only Chenin Blanc is grown in Bonnezeaux.  It is produced in a dessert style because of topography and humidity conditions that promote the development of a fungus called Botrytis cinerea.  Sometimes called "noble rot," Botrytis infects and dehydrates the grapes, leaving a high concentration of grape sugar behind.  When harvested and crushed, the juice is like a luscious sweet nectar.  The acidity is still present, though, so the wine remains fresh and balanced, not overly sweet and cloying.  Here's a photo of grapes infected by Botrytis.  Who would think these grapes are still good for making wine?



Sweet wines are just perfect for pairing with a variety of cheeses.  Relative to our experience in Jackson, the selection of cheeses in Chattanooga, Tennessee, near my Georgia hometown, is quite good.  Kaye and Glenn had no problem finding some very nice cheeses, ranging from mild to strong.  They included a lovely Comté from the Jura region of France, a triple cream Brie from, appropriately enough, the Brie region of France, Epoisses from the Burgundy area, and a delicious Point Reyes blue cheese from California.  Here are the cheeses arranged for our enjoyment.  The Epoisses is the one that is so stinky and runny, but tastes great.

The cheeses are delicious on their own, but the luscious sweetness of the Bonnezeaux creates a flavor transformation that explodes on the palate, really heightening the enjoyment of both the cheese and the wine.  Glenn liked the Comté most.  Kaye really liked both the Comté and the Point Reyes.  Mary liked the Brie and Point Reyes the most.  I most enjoyed the Epoisses and Point Reyes.  The saltiness of the blue cheese contrasted wonderfully with the sweetness of the Bonnezeaux

The weather has cooled a bit, so we took the wine and cheese onto the screened-in porch.  It was pleasant, not too humid, and not windy.  We enjoyed the aromas, flavors, company, and conversation.

Here are my notes on the Chateau de Fesles Bonnezeaux 1997: This is a wonderful Chenin Blanc in a dessert style. The color was amber, dark, like a maple syrup. The aromas were complex with grapefruit citrus, apricot, honey, flowers. The palate was smooth and full-bodied with nice balancing acidity, great honeyed, dried fruit, apricot, and crème brulée or brown sugar flavor characteristics. Balanced, complex, long finishing, very nice. 13.0% alcohol.  We paid $66 for this wine at Briarwood Wines and Spirits in Jackson.  If you can't find a Bonnezeaux, a Sauternes would be just as great.

This was an altogether delightful Cèpage et Cuisine experience at Kaye's and Glenn's home. 

That's it for today's post.  We hope you enjoyed it.  Until next time,

Cheers!

Meatless Monday: Vegetarian Pizza

Some time ago Mary and I decided we would take a small step toward healthier eating.  We decided to limit red meat to twice weekly and include one meatless day per week.  The remainder could be fish and poultry.  Then the challenge became to come up with meatless meals we enjoy, satisfy us, and not feel deprived.  One of those is a homemade meatless pizza, described here along with a wine pairing that is just fantastic.  Here's Mary, talking about making the pizza.  This week was Meatless Monday.

I’ve been making my own pizza crust for 10 years. It isn’t exactly like pizza parlor crust, but we think it’s delicious. It has a nice combination of doughy texture and a little crunch.  I use whole grain flour and NO sugar, so that’s a little different than most recipes. I found Fleischmann’s® Pizza Crust Yeast, and I follow directions on the back of the packet, leaving out the sugar. It’s SO easy! You can knead it in the food processor, but I prefer doing it by hand. After I knead the dough, I shape it and let it rest a while. Then I pat it out and stretch it to the size crust I want. I cook the plain dough in the oven for just 5 minutes at 350° so it’s easy to handle. We bought a pizza stone and a pizza peel – I highly recommend having these!

Sauce is spread thinly. Mozzarella is sprinkled on top, then whatever veggies you like. I did half-and-half with mushrooms/onions/garlic on Brian’s half and artichoke hearts on mine. Then just keep layering: tomatoes and/or sun-dried tomatoes, bell peppers, olives, whatever!

More mozzarella cheese goes on top, and into the 450° oven on the preheated stone for 15 minutes. Voilà!

The stone is really important to the finished product.  It gives the crust that great crunch, but doesn't overcook the rest of the crust or the pizza.  When finished, use a wooden peel to remove and handle the pizza.  You can put flour or corn meal on the peel to keep it smooth and easy to slide under the pizza.

Brian here again.  We paired the pizza with a delightful wine from the Languedoc, the southwest region of France, known for blends of Grenache, Syrah, Mourvedre, and other varieties.  Here's wife and wine.  Aren't they cute?

The producer is Abbaye de Tholomies from a specific appellation in the Languedoc called Minervois.  This bottle was from the 2004 vintage, a blend of Syrah, Grenache, and Mourvedre.  It had ripe fruit aromas and flavors of dark berry, plum, perhaps some licorice, a little mocha or chocolate, but adequately balanced, not hot with too much alcohol. The palate was medium to full in body with smooth tannins and low to medium acidity. It was modestly complex with a medium finish. All in all, a nice weeknight pizza wine. 14.0% alcohol.  We paid $25 for this wine.

Do you have vegetarian meals you would like to suggest?  Post them here!  We'd love to hear your ideas and maybe others would, too.

That's it for this post.  Hope you enjoyed it.  Post your comments and tell us what you think of the blog.  Suggest ideas for future blog posts.

Cheers,
Mary and Brian