Chardonnay muscaté

What on earth is that? Is it a clone? Will find out so stay tuned in.

Les Empreintes from Laherte Frères with my quick ct-note:


Clear and bright medium light golden color.
Clean and intensive nose of citric fruits, some complex greenness and smokiness with lees aging notes but such an inviting and refreshing scent.
The palate has a bright laser like and mouth drying acidity which makes you start salivating. The flavors are competing with each other. On the back you have the complex citric flavors with supporting or trying at least is some oak and smokiness and autolytic notes, while the most dominating flavors are the rocky yet a bit chalky minerality which carries the wine to the other sphere! 

Extraordinary because of the complexity and intensity of different yet harmonizing flavors, long length, yet the balance is built towards the tart yet refreshing acidity. This is a prime example why some want to do malo in champagne. I like this tremendously but not for everybody! This was the non dosé edition

Grape-varieties and vineyard:

40%Chardonnay (1/3 of Chardonnay muscaté). Les Chemins d’Epernay. Clay soils with a little silt stratum in surface. Chalky subsoil. Plots planted in 1957.
40% Pinot Noir. Les Rouges Maisons. Soil fairly deep with an important presence of clay, flints and schists. Chalky subsoils. Plots planted in 1983.
20 % Pinot Meunier. Les Monts Bougies. Soft soil with a dominant of silt and marl. Limestone subsoils. Plots planted in 1965.

Back again

This time back for longer period of time. A vision to do at least one post every week. Studying the double you set for a diploma now.

Dessert and Sweet Fortified Wine please.

In Finnish food&wine pairing discussion, sugar is the main key factor when trying to decide the wine with dessert. The same old story begins always about having a sweeter (higher sugar content) wine than in the food. Fortunately, the normative way is starting to crumble. The starting point I'd credit to the revolutionary white chocolate and rosé pairing by Cloetta Fazer and WineState.

Last week I did a tasting/food pairing. Anyway there was a protrusive moment when sparkling rosé was paired with some sort of berried mousse. It was spot on! What next? Is there more? Let's forget the sugar and the alcohol? What a structured world of wine pairing!

Time to get my goggles on and dive at the deep end...

Red with Fish?

-Red wine with fish.
-What? No. Ever drank wine with food? Get outta here!

I dare you to try this great bordelais dish but with some improvising.
This dish is about river lamprey(nahkiainen, lamproie, カワヤツメウナギ) and red wine.
This darkening Autumn has created a great food sensation with such a simple ingredients and such a great match! All you need is (cold) smoked lampreys and a gamay from Beaujolais or more specifically Morgon Cotê de Py 2008 by Jean-Marc Burgaud.

Did Burgaud have lamproie when he made this wine? The Perfect Match in a long time. But if you don't have lampreys I think eel would work as well. If you don't drink when eating leave the bottle to mature for awhile.

Yeast

Iphone blogging rules or not?

I got myself thinking about yeast and decided to post my irrational thoughts.

First things first. It is common to use non-commercial yeast to make wine typical of its origin or better stuff than the commoners buy...

Why beaujolais nouveau has banana and other weird aromas? Gamay? Not the carbonic maceration either but the commercial yeast type playing the lead main role.

Let us go back to the naturalistas. Would go full monty if you happened to have the banana under your trousers? That's what I thought. It sure is more awkward if it's artificial than the real thing. But in wine even the realest must fix the the landscape because vine doesn't equal to wine without intervention. To shoot the pistol or to choke the chicken. Errrr. What?何?

Is modern style valid anymore?

I'm drinking this Chateau Berrye 2003, a Saumur rouge made from cabernet franc, and my short tasting note would read out like this: A ruby red of medium intensity, very intense nose of wooden spices and red berries, palate has lot's of wooden tannins with medium high acidity as well as alcohol and a fruit forward style wine.  A structured wine with interplay with fruit. A Modern Wine. Le vin moderne shortened to vin merde.

Is this valid anymore? Modern has been modern for ages. Should we move to post-modern wines which I would suggest the natural movement to be or define modernity again?

Speaking of which. I find going back to the roots like going back hundreds of years very modern in contemporary thinking about wine, food and life.

Loire Whites

I recently had a blast at the current world's best restaurant and it got me thinking how little I know about wines from my favorite country. A good Loire is just so hard to find. I knew one or two of these producers. That is I knew the name, maybe once tasted his product. Dang!

Philippe Tessier

Domaine du Petit Coteau

Damien Laureau

Château de Passavant

Vacheron

Gourdon

Domaine des Sablonettes (Christine & Joël Menard)