Wine, Pleasure, Beauty
Wine, happiness, a culture of pleasure. An exploration that roams from a local wine drinking community to a whole world of passion, beauty, and pleasure that awaits us out there. You know, eat, drink, and be merry-type stuff. Let's dive into wine and pleasure, but not take ourselves too seriously. After all, as a friend of mine likes to point out to beer geeks and wine freaks, "we're just talking about 10 minutes of pleasure, that's all."
To connect with me elsewhere, I can be found on Twitter @RonMarks, on Cork'd to share what we're drinking, or for my more personal mindcasting stuff, check out www.ronmarks.tumblr.com, or you can simply ask me a question here
Cheers!
-
Showing posts tagged sauvignon blanc
-
Those Darling Wine Discovery Moments
So, normally I wouldn’t do a wine review on this blog - I use Cork’d to track my bottles and thoughts - but I’m going to talk today about a particular discovery.
I’ve been drinking wine for about three or four years now. Before that, I rarely drank any at all. In fact, I rarely drank. But then I made a discovery, saw a new side to wine, and I was hooked.
And the great thing about pursuing wine as a total hedonistic and aesthetic pursuit is that you get to keep having discoveries. Wine is an inexhaustible subject, one that is always changing, with a seeming endless novelty. Producers matter, vintages matter, weather matters, aging matters, the ambiance in which the wine is tasted matters, the food matters… it just goes on. So what I wanted to do is share a sample of what a discovery looks like when made by someone with quite a bit of wine exploration already under his belt.
And so, with no further ado… Graves!
All the wine I’ve ever had, I’ve never had one made mostly with Semillon. I don’t think I’ve had more than one or two white Bordeaux wines either. Last night changed that. Here’s how it happened. I was asking the owner of one of my local liquor shops to recommend a good wine from Graves. I was told to try one by another wine dude. So he emailed me a few recommendations, and added that Graves is his favorite expression of Sauvignon Blanc. Really? What about Sancerre? Yes, those are great, but he said Sauvignon Blanc is just a bit different in Graves, and in the wines he recommended blended it with Semillon.
So I picked up his recommendation: 2008 Chateau La Grave d’Arzac. 90% Semillon, 10% Sauvignon Blanc. $9. Seriously. $9.
First, I have to admit, I screwed up the pairing. I served it with shrimp, but there was a touch too much pepper on the shrimp for this wine to handle and the wine was really dwarfed by it. I didn’t notice the wine’s true character until I poured a second glass after dinner.
The sniff: A little sweet, like a honeydew melon, but mostly it smelled like a subtly grassy Sauvignon Blanc, even though that grape only made up 10% of the blend. Lovely.
The taste: Wow. Not a Sauvignon Blanc at all. Such a viscosity coated my mouth and tongue, and on the finish a striking minerality showed itself. And the effect it had on my mouth was that of when you drink something and it whets your thirst, it made me want to sip it again, and again. It was lightly sweet, again similar to the mild sweetness of a melon, had the crispness of a Sauvignon Blanc, and had the mouth feel of a Riesling. All these elements in just the right proportions, playing off one another in turn, like music. Balance.
The effect: I began to daydream about France, and her magical soils. This is the nicest white wine I’ve discovered in a while, both its main varietal and its region being a novelty to me, and I was handsomely rewarded.
In summary: DISCOVER!
It truly is the journey, not the destination.
Cheers
-
Your Weekly Wine Geography Lesson
Looking to explore other food-friendly white wines that are also good on their own? Something elegant? Something crisp? Something not too fruity? An obvious choice to add variety to your white wine drinking is the Sauvignon Blanc. And the historical home of this grape is France’s Loire Valley, notably Sancerre.
When it comes to the character of a wine, geography matters. Sauvignon Blanc is grown in many different parts of the world, and expresses itself differently depending on the climate and soil where it finds itself. In Sancerre, cool summer climates give the grape its crisp acidity (what makes it pair so well with food). And since there is a lot of chalk and limestone in the soil, the wine will take on this flavor rather than being all fruit. Its herbal character can sometimes be compared to a grassiness if it is strong. The result is, when it comes out right, a white wine that is gentle, with an herbal perfume smell to it, and a crispness that allows it to pair particularly beautifully with different kinds of fish dishes.
So if you are shopping for a Sancerre wine, what should you look for? A total of 14 villages and three hamlets have the right to produce Sancerre. The two most recognized areas in Sancerre are Chene Marchand in the village of Bue, and the Monts Damnes in Chavignol, which would be the likely locations for the more expensive bottles. Regardless of where it comes from, these wines typically aren’t meant to be aged, and should be enjoyed within a year or two of bottling. A Sancerre Savignon Blanc typically starts around $20 - not at all in the value wines category - and can easily be found in the $50 range as well.
So the next time you are in your local wine shop, make your way to the Loire, and try something truly exceptional. -
Damn Good Value Wine
My goal for this series on good cheap wine will be to help you all explore a new wine grape variety or region on the cheap. I’m setting a VERY strict $10 price limit, which will be a good challenge, as it will allow us to explore more wines more economically.
For my first value pick of the month I decided to look for a good example of the grape variety Sauvignon Blanc, since my wine region featured this month was Sancerre, the home of this grape. Unfortunately, I can’t find a Sancerre in that price range anywhere. So I decided to look to the second most famous Sauvignon Blanc home: New Zealand!
So without further fanfare, my recommendation to you is: Matua Sauvignon Blanc 2008, from Marlborough, New Zealand.
Why? It smells like pears, tastes a bit like apples, has a really nice, long finish, and will pair wonderfully with almost any fish or non-spicy vegetarian meal you throw at it. Try it, enjoy it, and then tell me how much you liked it.
