Maker's Table

Corse

Domaine de Granajolo
Corse Porto-Vecchio
2009
13% ABV | Price: about $14

André Boucher's Domaine de Granjolo comprises 20 hectares in the southern tip of Corsica. The granitic soils are farmed organically, and Boucher's daughter Gwenaele is the winemaker. This wine is 100% vermentinu (vermentino). 

Spritely aromas of bay leaf, sage, lemon, and citrus blossom rise to meet you. The wine has a smooth texture and succulent flavors of citrus and wild herbs, with a bitter cut that renders it cleansing and brightly refreshing. Lively, shimmering, and succulent, it would be a perfect mate for seafood, herb-roasted poultry, or fresh cheeses. Highly recommended.

 

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Pink and White

M. Chapoutier
Côtes-du-Rhône "Belleruche" Blanc
2009
13.5% ABV | Price: about $13*

Côtes-du-Rhône "Belleruche" Rosé
2010
13.5% ABV | Price: about $13*

A pair of wines from reputable Northern Rhône producer Michel Chapoutier, whose winery I visited in 2002 (see my article and notes).

The white is a blend primarily of grenache blanc, with clairette and bourboulenc. It has a very faint, appley nose, but considerable body and good mouthfeel, owing likely to the preponderance of grenache blanc in the blend. It's simple and clean, with a slight chalkiness, and as it warms, a little menthol woodsyness emerges, too.

The pink is primarily grenache, with cinsault and syrah. It's a pale salmon color, somewhat typical of Rhône rosés, and the nose is a bit earthy and stinky, but in a good way. On the palate it's a little peppery, likely from the grenache, with good acidity and that same mineral chalkiness of the white. But it has a little more edge, plus a pleasant heft and earthiness, and is my favorite of this tasting.

Neither is a serious wine, but they're capably made, and their stony, minerally chalkiness makes them good with fresh goat cheese. Best enjoyed young, which can be said, alas, of many things.

 

*I received these wines as press samples.

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Sancerrious

Franck et Jean-Francois Bailly
Sancerre "Cuvée Chavignol"
2007
13.0% ABV | Price: about $25*

Red Sancerre is made exclusively, in accordance with France's AC laws, with pinot noir grapes. This one is fine-boned and intense. Pale garnet with a faint peach cast at the rim, when swirled it gives off slightly earthy, smoky aromas with undertones of black plums. Brightly acidic with great minerality and a slightly spicy cut, it finishes lean. After a few minutes in the glass, it opens the windows and brushes out its hair. But it's a restrained wine; its dressing gown stays on.

It is also resoundingly a food wine. I paired it with an aged french goat cheese, a Bûcheron with a white rind, both born of the same soil, nearly. The wine married effortlessly with the chalky, gaminess of the cheese, and a sip after a bite was like spring after winter: clean, bright, cleansing.

My ancestors hail from the Loire. I'll have to visit soon.

 

*I received this wine as a press sample.

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Rosacker

Frédéric Mallo et Fils
Riesling Rosacker Vieilles Vignes
2004
13.0% ABV | Price: about $26

There have been vines in the Rosacker plot since 1497. Today, about half is riesling, the other half gewürtztraminer.

This Riesling derives from forty-five year old vines. It's a brilliant light yellow, offering aromas of peach, melon, spring grass, white flowers, and petrol. On the palate it tastes like stone fruits—or maybe stony fruits—with a lingering grapefruit-melon finish.

Alsatian, baby.

 

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Quietly Ringing

Jean-Marie Arnoux
Vacqueyras "Vieux Clocher"
2004
14.0% ABV | Price: about $21

This wine has aged a bit and sports a brickish rim. On the nose it's spicy and leathery with a blush of fresh fennel and anise seed. Lean and savory on the palate, with restrained red fruits and supple tannins. It offers a long, quiet finish.

More elegant than I expect from a Vacqueyras. Perhaps that's the age talking; if it gets any older, it might be too faint to hear.

 

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One Hundred Percent

Alain Paret
Côtes-du-Rhône Valvigneyre
2007
13.5% ABV | Price: about $15

Inky red-black, this wine smells like violets and black pepper and a raspberry patch in full sun. It's 100% syrah, with a savory, meaty core underneath aromatic herbs (thyme, sage, rosemary). On the palate I find some lovely red fruits: currant, raspberry, cranberry. It has a drying finish and (mercifully) no forward oak. Age-worthy. A steal.

 

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The Woodcocks

M. Chapoutier
Côte-Rôtie "Les Bécasses"
1999
13.0% ABV | Price: about $56

We purchased this bottle at the winery in June 2002, while on our honeymoon in the Northern Rhône. The wine's color has matured to a deep ruby red with the faintest glint of orange. The nose is beguiling and wildly aromatic, with a floral bouquet of violets, lavender, and rosemary floating above an earthy, leathery base. When first poured, it seemed closed on the palate, austere and thin. But after fifteen minutes in the glass, the wine began to expand and open, filling the mouth with clean dark fruit, herbs like anise and lavender, a bright acidity, and a savory, spicy earthiness. It's a bit tannic, with a drying, woody finish (befitting its name). Perhaps it's still a bit young, or maybe it started with a bit too much oak. Still, it's an elegant, Old World wonder, and still wonderful in its eleventh year.

 

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Quincy

Domaine Lecomte
Quincy "Vielle Vignes"
2008
13.0% ABV | Price: about $20

Pale straw yellow and aromatic, with a salty, floral nose. On the palate it has brilliant acidity: citrusy, but with pear and basil, too. It tastes like jasmine in full bloom. It offers an herbaceous finish that's spicy but languorous. It takes its time.

Restrained and elegant, this wine poses an Old-world counterpoint to the explosively grassy, lemony Sauvignon Blancs found in the New.

"It's alive," says my husband. Yes, and I'm glad I am, too.

 

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Enfants de la Patrie

Domaine des Varinelles, Famille Daheuiller
Saumur-Champigny
2006
13.5% ABV | Price: about $25

It's Bastille Day, so a good time to think about my French heritage. My maternal lineage hails from the Loire, from the tiny village of Faye-la-Vineuse. (I wish I'd known Faye. Given her vinous proclivities, I'm sure we'd have gotten along famously.)

In celebration, tonight we opened a Saumur-Champigny, a wine made not too far from my ancestral stomping grounds. It's 100% cabernet franc and deep ruby in the glass. The nose is spicy and peppery, and blooms with fresh herbs like catmint and tarragon. It somehow manages to smell both fresh and dark, young and old, with bright ripe fruits like strawberry and black raspberry standing forward against darker brambles, plus a plummy earthiness. On the palate it's supple, with smooth, spreading fruit and good acidity. It finishes dry, astringent like strong black tea.

"This wine is about its nose," my husband observed. And for me, it's about its provenance, too.

 

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Stony, Steely

Domaine de la Pepière
Muscadet Sèvre et Maine sur Lie
2009
12% ABV | Price: about $15

This wine is clear pale yellow, offering bright, lightly flowery, almost salty aromas. On the palate it's flinty, like a cold nickel in your mouth, with very faint citrus and stone fruits balanced by strong acidity. It tastes a bit like Brie, or Camembert (maybe from the lees?).

Cleansing, Old World, steely. Not loose; serious. Pure.

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