Hello, wine friends and welcome again to Cépage et Cuisine, Mary’s and Brian’s wine and food blog. May 11 was Chablis day. The village of Chablis is small but very famous. Many Americans remember Chablis as a term to describe generic white wine. In fact, it describes a specific growing appellation that is part of Burgundy, about an hour and a half slightly northwest of Beaune via the A6 autoroute. With few exceptions, the wines of Chablis are all Chardonnay. The climate and the limestone chalky soils, known as Kimmeridgian, composed of fossilized sea creatures from a prehistoric time when the area was submerged by the ocean, produce lean wines with bright acidity, excellent minerality, and sometimes austere profiles that pair wonderfully with mild fish and shellfish, particularly oysters. Most producers use little new oak, sometimes none at all, preferring to use enamel tile-lined concrete vats or stainless steel tanks. Like the rest of Burgundy, wines are classified as Chablis, Chablis Premier Cru, and Chablis Grand Cru. There is also a category called Petite Chablis, which may include grapes that are not grown on the Kimmeridgian soil, but still have the freshness and mineral characteristics of Chablis.
Here’s a brief sidebar on the cultural experience. In the U.S. I often stop for a coffee to drink while I drive, usually about a 12 oz size. On the way out of town we stopped at a small marché in Ledoix-Serigny, which is just down the hill from Villers-la-Faye. I went inside to ask for the coffee. In my terrible French and the proprietor’s limited English, we had a conversation that went something like… “Avez-vous en café crème emporter?” (Do you have coffee with cream to go?) “Oui, le petits ou le grands?” (Yes, small or large?) “Le grands, s’il vous plaîs.” (Large, please). “Très bien, voilà!” (Very good, here you go!) The little plastic cup in the photo, slightly more than half filled, is what he produced. That’s the large. The small is the size of an espresso cup. We laughed and laughed. As much as we both love France and French culture, coffee is an area where the Americans absolutely have the upper hand.
Our first appointment was at the cellars of Domaine Simonnet Febvre, a very old producer that is one of the few that produces Chablis sparkling wine. Simonnet Febvre, now owned by Maison Louis Latour, produces a full range of still and sparkling Chablis and wines from nearby appellations such as Auxerre. If you’ve been a follower of the blog for some time, you may recall that Mary is a big fan of sparkling wine. A nice cellar tour by a young lady named Emmanuelle Pasquet included the opportunity to turn the riddling machine, which was kind of a thrill for me. Riddling is a process of gently rotating the bottles of sparkling wine after the second fermentation in the bottle to allow the dead yeast cells to settle in the neck of the bottle for later removal before release. After the tour, Emmanuelle tasted us through their line of sparkling and still wines from Chablis. We took a bottle of the sparkling rosé with us for later consumption on a "cook in" night.
We had a nice lunch at Le Bistrot des Grands Crus. It was warm enough to dine on the patio. I was bold and had something I’ve never experienced before…rabbit stew. I know people who have hunted rabbits and ate them, but I’ve never partaken, until now. It tasted fine, but I must say the appearance, texture, and flavor were pretty much like chicken. If it had been presented to me without knowing it was rabbit, I would have said it was chicken if not for the difference in the shape of the bone. I enjoyed it, however, and have a new appreciation for the term, “the other white meat.”
Our second appointment was at Domaine Jean-Paul et Benoit Droin. It is another very old family estate, dating to the 1600s, which continually amazes me. The visit was short and to the point. The person in the barrel room could not speak a word of English and quickly tasted us through three very nice wines. We thanked her and went on our way. As we walked around town, we noticed how the parking lots, sidewalks, and streets were dusted in that white, chalky soil that explains the character of the wines of Chablis.
We drove back to Villers-la-Faye along the back roads and through all the villages, which takes almost twice as long as the autoroute. If you’re not in a hurry, it’s worth the time. The countryside is a continuously beautiful montage of rolling meadows, wildflowers, forests, and medieval villages. Below are photos of Samur-en-Auxois, which looks like and is an old castle town, and another of Sainte Sabine with its majestic church looming over the rooftops of the village. It is the same image that appears at the top of the blog, but this image is in the sunlight.
Back at Villers-la-Faye, Mary photographed a couple of iris gardens. Burgundy is apparently perfect for iris. They are everywhere and in copious quantity. Enjoy. The restored wine press is just at the end of our street, steps from our door and on the way to the boulangerie.
I thought these were an unusual color and especially pretty.
We shopped and cooked for dinner, a simple but delicious meal of saucisse aux herbes, sausages with herbs and sautéed vegetables along with a fresh salad. We finished with a fromage called Palet de Bourgogne, a simple and inexpensive but nice local cheese.
We opened the Savigny-lès-Beaune Clos des Guettes we purchased a few days ago at Domaine Henri Villamont. It was delicious, not extremely complex, especially at such a young age, but it was nice with the dinner and we enjoyed having a local wine with local food. Here are my notes on the wine.
Domaine Henri Villamont Savigny-les-Beaune Clos des Guettes 2008. This was a wine of excellent structure and compatibility with food. Although we opened it very young, I can tell it has great potential for aging for several years. The aroma profile was mostly red fruit, but also had notes of earth and minerality. The palate was smooth, not silky, considering its age, with great acidity and medium body. The flavor profile was tart red cherry, raspberry, and a little spice on the finish. Nicely balanced, moderately complex, medium length, needs much more time to reveal itself. 13.0% alcohol. We paid €20 for this wine.
That’s our post for today. We hope you enjoyed it and that you find our reports from France interesting. Keep checking back at Cépage et Cuisine as we share more wine and food experiences. In the meantime,
Cheers!
Mary♥Brian
No comments:
Post a Comment