We travel to Corbieres, a little region in the south of France, to taste a wine with a big reputation for “funky elegance.” Click here to watch the Corbieres video.
Wines tasted: Cuvee Alice from Ollieux Romanis 2006
Pair foods from a specific region with wines of a specific region. Wines from specific regions have been tailored over the last two thousand years to be wines that go well with the foods of the region in which the wines were grown; it’s only in the last fifty years or so that wine has traveled outside of the region in which it was made.
That’s why, when I went to Pomme de Terre (a tiny, seasonal French bistro in my neighborhood), and had no idea what we were going to order from the menu, I brought a bottle of southern French white. It was the correct answer to the question, “what would we drink if we were in a cafe in Lyon in the dead of summer?”
Specifically I chose Jean-Marc Lafarge 2008 Catalan Blanc Côte Est. It was a blend of Marsanne, Chardonnay, and Grenache that produced a refreshing wine that hung aromas of white tropical fruits on a skeleton of lemon piths and limestone.
It paired wonderfully with crispy squid, sauteed frog legs, cucumber/watermelon salad, and even the rabbit pappardelle covered in a heavy red wine sauce.
If we were at an Aussie grill house, I would have brought a brawny Shiraz. If were eating marinara, I would have brought something from Campagna. If we had paella, (now that’s a complicated pairing if you don’t follow this regional rule!), I would have brought a wine from Valencia.
So if you’re ever stuck at a restaurant and the waiter doesn’t seem to know what he’s talking about, then just order a wine from the same place that inspired your food.
The vintage, or the year that the grapes in a bottle of wine were grown, is a huge factor when ordering wine in a restaurant- the vintage determines the overall style of a region’s wines in any given year because, even after all of science fiction writers hard work the past 100 years, you can’t control the weather!
In the southern Rhone where bold Grenache grapes dominate and Syrah and a dozen other grapes add weight and spice, 2007 has been, stylistically, one of the strongest and most consistent vintages on record. Winemakers could not help but grow wines that have chewy textures and intense aromas. 2007 is not a year in the Rhone for those who like delicate, soft wines; 2007 in the southern Rhone is made for those who want to feel like their wine is strong enough to be drinking them.
The Rhone Valley is divided into 2 parts, the Northern Rhone (Syrah-based) and the Southern Rhone (Grenache-based), so to order a 2007 southern Rhone wine, you might need to ask your waiter for “a Grenache-based Rhone wine.”
If your waiter is some snot-nosed college student with an ironic mustache who’s only working in the restaurant 1) to save enough money for 1st+last+security deposit on their first NYC apartment and 2) because their friend’s uncle gave them the job***, then you might have to look for the name of a town in the southern Rhone instead of asking about the grapes. In that case, here’s a cheat sheet (why don’t wine lists come with maps and tasting notes?!)
$10to $20 glasses… if it’s a bottle, feel free to ask them to decant it.
1) Chateauneuf-du-Pape: Black raspberry jam and lavender flavors…the most “obvious” wine in the rhone… it’s a bit of a tongue-flapping golden retriever and it’s hard to pronounce (shat-toe-noof-dew-pop), but it requires very little thought once it’s in your glass.
2) Gigondas: The most cerebral town of the Southern Rhone. It’s like Chateauneuf-du-Pape if Chateauneuf-du-Pape would just grow up and stop trying to get every person it met to like it. Rosemary and thyme dusted in the dry, cracked earth of August served with a hint of dry cherry cola. How do you make soda pop not sweet? I don’t know, but if you could, it would taste like Gigondas.
3) Rasteau: This wine tastes like a well-respected Bordeaux that spent a semester Nepal and came back with some very dark secrets. Rasteau is a village that is far better known for making fortified white wines called vin du naturel, and fortified wine from Rasteau brings in a much higher profit than a plain red wine so if a winemaker chooses to spend his/her time on a “boring” old red, then you can expect it to be well worth your time and money.
4) Valreas: Probably the least expensive of the Villages I’ve highlighted, but also one of the easiest to enjoy without too much thought. The major flavors are deep cranberry jams, violets, and star anise. A $8 bottle of this once kicked my behind across a very expensively garnished table at a very stuffy dinner party on the UES… My friend and I had two glasses each and had a fantastic time, but I’m not sure the rest of the Napa-loving crowd enjoyed their night as much as we did.
The point of all this is DRINK A 2007 SOUTHERN RHONE RED RIGHT NOW!
*** Could this mustachioed man perhaps have been me in an earlier life… and maybe I might have worked here :0).
Maplethorpe Thornberry (a good friend and professor of literature at Trinity College in Cambridge) happens to be a big wine lover, and after a few emails we got him to conduct an interview about Chateauneuf-du-Pape with Nigel Dawson, another British wine lover and (former) member of The Who. Click here to watch it!
A few of our favorite Chateauneuf-du-Pape producers:
Chateau Mont-Thabor
Chateau Beaucastel
Clos du Mont-Olivet
“Wine after Work” episode 2 - Gigondas
The second episode of our Wine after Work series. Today we’re focusing on Gigondas!
