October 2008

France’s Foires aux Vins and my Wine of the Month
Last month we mentioned we were going to the Foire aux Vins in France. We spent a lovely weekend on the Normandy coast in Le Havre, shopping for wines and eating and drinking with friends. Although we haven’t tasted many of the wines yet, one which we have tasted is a Pinot Noir from Burgundy (Bourgogne). It was a Beaune Premier Cru Les Chouacheux 2004 from the négociant André Montessuy. Although not bargain basement at €14.95 a bottle from the Auchan hypermarket, the taste was so lovely that it becomes my Wine of the Month for October. I think Beaunes are rather better value than most of the wines of the Côte d’Or and this was a delicate soft berry fruit wine that we really enjoyed. If one only buys the well known négociants, best years and well known vineyards, it is easy to miss gems like this! I only wish I’d bought more.

South African Pinot Noir and Ostrich fillet
Another Pinot Noir we tasted this month was a rather more expensive one from South Africa – a 2006 Hamilton Russell Vineyards Walker Bay Pinot Noir. This needed decanting as it is still rather young but was also a wonderful wine and very Burgundian in style. We tried this South African wine with some lovely Ostrich fillet, flash grilled and served with Mango and roasted butternut squash – altogether a very South African experience. Ostrich is difficult to get in the shops; we bought on line from http://www.oslinc.co.uk/. Well worth a try as it cooks very quickly, is delicious and quite healthy. At £26 this Pinot Noir is expensive but compares well with Burgundies of a similar price in the UK. We got ours from Fareham Wine Cellar which is an incredible Aladdin’s cave of a wine shop where one can source many difficult to obtain wines at fair prices. Another Pinot Noir they stock is Domaine Drouhin from Willamette in Oregon. If you have not yet discovered a good USA Pinot Noir this is well worth trying at £20+ a bottle.

This month’s UK supermarket reds
Here are our recommendations this month for good UK supermarket reds. We tasted two lovely Cabernet Sauvignons from Tesco’s this month. The first was a Montes Alpha Cabernet Sauvignon 2005 from the Colchagua Valley in Chile which is normally slightly over £10 but when we bought it there was a substantial discount. Montes Alpha has a very good reputation, and tasting this I can understand why. The second was a Napa Family Vineyards Finest Selection Reserve 2005 which was a similar price to the Chilean Cab. Once you gave this wine time to open up it was an enjoyable fruity wine. We used this wine for some experimentation into what cheeses go best with a nice Cab. Research on some other web sites had suggested everything from Brie and Camembert through tangy cheddar to Mimolette and aged Gouda. Our own extensive research (we bought fourteen different cheeses to test!) suggested that Brie and Camembert are an appalling match and ruin the wine. However, some Cheddars such as Montgomery from Sussex do go well and aged Dutch cheeses such as Old Amsterdam, Mature Edam or Gouda also are an excellent match. French favourites Mimolette and Beaufort also work well. However, the best match was a ewe’s milk cheese from Sussex called Duddleswell, which was the only one which not only did not detract but actually enhanced the wine. The biggest surprise was a blue goat’s cheese called Ribblesdale Blue which is probably the best blue and best goat’s cheese to accompany Cabernet Sauvignon and helps gives you a well rounded cheese board.

October White Wines
My focus for White wines this month is on Chardonnay, which is a grape variety that is often avoided because of bad experiences with buttery Chardonnays that so many people hate. Rest assured, there are other styles of Chardonnay! We were looking for a good New Zealand wine early in the month that was not the usual Sauvignon Blanc. In the end we tasted an excellent Wither Hills Marlborough Chardonnay 2006 from Waitrose that shows that some New World Chardonnays are rather lovely. It was crisp and fruity and a joy to drink. We tried this with a trio of Crab starters: a crab, tomato and cucumber gaspacho; crab with mango and avocado; and crab and kiwi with a mild coconut curry. Perhaps the biggest surprise Chardonnay of the month was a Mondavi Woodbridge Chardonnay from the USA which was on special offer at Sainsbury’s. At well under £5 it was quite drinkable. As far as old world Chardonnays go I had a wonderful Chablis Premier Cru Fourchaume in France this month and it perhaps confirmed this as my favourite Chablis. Earlier in the year I had tasted wines from this vineyard and bought some at the Chablisienne co-operative in Chablis. From further south in the Burgundy region we also bought and tasted some lovely Macon wines this month: Viré Clessé and Pouilly Fuissé – more about these in a later blog.

My white wine of the month for October does not go to a Chardonnay but to my more preferred Riesling. I love Alsace Rieslings and their normal dry style. One of my favourite producers is Paul Zinck from Eguisheim (try his wines at Majestic or Laithwaite’s), but this month we tasted another excellent producer, Trimbach, located in Ribeauvillé. His bottom of the range Riesling is far too austere for my taste but the next cuvée up, the Reserve, is excellent. We bought the Trimbach Réserve Riesling 2006 from Waitrose and thoroughly enjoyed it, making it my white wine of the month. Jane prepared some lovely apéritif spoons of smoked trout topped with an apple and whole grain mustard compote to go with this wine. A heavenly combination!

As I begun the article talking about the Foire aux Vins in France I will sign off with a few impressions. We visited the Auchan foire plus the last day of the Monoprix version. The Auchan foire is by far bigger than Monoprix and I was able to stock up on Burgundy, Bordeaux and some good value wines for the next six months. Perhaps due to global financial austerity it seemed quieter than in recent years. The Monoprix foire was smaller and as it was the last day some of the wines I had hoped for had been sold out. However, I picked up some old favourites like Alphonse Mellot’s excellent Sancerre and two of my favourite good value Languedoc reds from the Jean Jean sisters and Gérard Bertrand. It is interesting that the UK supermarkets are copying the Wine Fair theme and, as long as you choose correctly it is a good time to buy at places like Tesco and Sainsbury when they have their special deals. At other times their wines can be at ridiculous prices. Some wines in these special offers, however, are not particularly good. I tried a couple of Sicilian wines from Tesco at under £4 and they were dreadful. My advice is to go to the wine fairs and buy a few bottles of those you fancy and then go home and have a happy evening wine tasting. Then the next day go back and buy six or more of your favourites!

That’s it for October. Check back next month for a review of Macon whites and some Beaujolais reds.

A la bonne vôtre !