A French quartet

Trying new wines with a group of others can be a fun and educational experience. Will you all have the same reaction to the same wine? What flavor notes do you detect compared with what others are tasting?

Often the answer to these questions is both yes and no. A group of people can have a similar reaction to a wine in a broad sense, but different people will taste and smell different things according to their own character as well as their own biology. After all, one person may smell something in a wine that another person cannot simply because he  or she cannot detect that particular scent under any circumstances.

Recently I attended a wine tasting with a group of fellow members of the I Like Red Wine Meet Up group here in Chicago. Cities all across America have Meet Up groups and they're relatively easy to set up should you have a particular interest but cannot find a group already organized.

There were four French wines for the evening's tasting, all from the Boystown wine store The Gourmet Grape.

The first was a Bordeaux Blanc, the 2010 Château de Lestiac. As with virtually all French wines, this is a blend, and with virtually all Bordeaux Blanc, it was a blend of Sauvignon Blanc and Semillon. It had a very bright flavor, strong mineral, almost slate-like. There was the signature citrus and herb of the Sauvignon Blanc, but there was softer fruit as well, more like pear, perhaps from the Semillon. I could not taste any oak, although others said they did. I could see this wine working well with swordfish, but surprisingly, I found a website that suggested this wine would do well with a variety of lamb dishes! I don't know about anyone else, but when I think of lamb, I think of earthy reads from the Southern Rhône.

The second wine was a Cotes du Rhône, the 2010 Jean-LucColombo Les Abeilles. Lots of character here built upon smooth tannin. Velvety fruit with black cherry and a hint of spice with white pepper. The blend here is 60 percent Grenache, 30 percent Syrah, and 10 percent Mourvèdre. Another wine that would go well with lamb, but the winemaker also recommends grilled pork, tuna steaks, cured meats and fresh cheese.

Next in line was the 2006 Château de Fontenille, an estate whose lineage goes back to the 13th century. This wine was rich with lots of black fruit with cassis playing the star role. This wine also went really well with a pungent cheese we had, although I can't remember the type of cheese. But it was one we all joked tasted a bit like locker room sox. Yet, when paired with this wine, it was quite good.

The final wine was a 2008 Château Jonqueyres Bordeaux Superior, which actually was a bit of a disappointment. This was all tits and no ass. It was a bit grapey and fruit forward, but lacked a finish. However, it did develop more character after it had been opened for a while, developing strong tannin and more nuanced fruit. But still no finish to speak of.

As the photo suggests, there was a fifth wine that was not on the original plan, a 2012 Beaujolais Nouveau that despite it already being February was quite tasty and fruitful.

So if you want to stir things up a bit, by some wines you've never had before and invite some friends over to taste them. Compare your notes and enjoy yourselves.

Boxing Day 2012

When you've been holding a wine for 30 years, you can expect some variation from bottle to bottle within the same vintage. That was our experience for this year's Boxing Day dinner at Philander Hall in Dixon, IL.

Oh please don't ask me where is Dixon. Suffice it to say that my friend Curt has a "cellar" there that still has a fine collection of Bordeaux from the 1980s. While my wine cellar is a closet - and I mean that literally - Curt's wine cellar is a crawl space at Philander Hall, his home/art center in Dixon. The temperature in his crawl space is a fairly consistent low 60s, so temperature fluctuations aren't an issue for him like they are with my closet. But he does face problems from time to time with humidity variances. That was evident when we opened the two 1982 St. Julien he brought out for dinner, as the corks fell apart in both bottles.

But I am getting ahead.

We enjoyed two classic wines on Boxing Day that I must say performed exceptionally well given some of the tasting notes I've reviewed on the web.

It was a fabulous dinner that began a sumptuous lobster pot pie served with a reduced cream and white wine sauce. This was paired with the 1993 Clos Windsbuhl Tokay Pinot Gris from Domaine Zind Humbrecht. It was a deliciously creamy wine that paired excellently with the lobster pot pie, and I think we might have been exceptionally lucky with it. Some tasting notes described this wine as being "over the hill" and "tired." Not ours, however; it was succulent with delicious and juicy fruit.

The next course was a salad of mixed greens with seared duck breast, Roquefort, and some pomegranate seeds.

Selected to go with the main course was the 1982 Chateâu Gruaud Larose, which was paired with quail stuffed with foie gras and morel mushrooms, with a side of polenta made with shaved black perigord truffles; all presented in a Madeira sauce. We had two bottles of the Chateâu Gruaud and while they were both 1982s, each was distinctly different.

The first bottle has a definite blackberry nose, but that was gone in minutes to be replaced with more earthy scents of leather and anise. Its color was a brick red, almost prune-ish. The wine had a light mineral quality and a finish that lingered on and on and on.

The second bottle had much more fruit and its nose more floral; it was altogether a different character with different color as well, a deep garnet, almost ruby red. Even with the more fruit, the second bottle still had that delicate essence of a wine cellared for 30 years. And the tasting notes on the web suggest this wine can still be held for another 20 years! However, I do think the first bottle was caught just in time.

I will score both of these wines with a 9 using my scale at the left.

Rosé is a wine for summer

We may be on the backend of summer, but there is still plenty of time to enjoy some delicious rosé, and as they have done in recent years past, the French are producing some marvelous rosé with much of it available for less than $12.

Many of my favorites have come from Provence and the Southern Rhône area, but an exceptional good buy widely available now come from the Bergerac area of Dordogne in Bordeaux. The 2011 Chateau Haut Sarthes can be had for as little as $8 and it's a delicious find. I would call this wine delicious if it were $15, but for $8? This is totally delightful.

This is a lovely find because apparently just 15 percent of the rosé produced in the Bergerac is exported, and most of that goes to Great Britain, Germany, Belgium and the Netherlands.

And it goes well with a wide variety of food. The first time I had it, my friend Curt brought it along to have with artisan pizza at the Pizza Art Cafe in Ravenswood Gardens here in Chicago. A crisp dry rosé with the sumptuous flavor of ripe strawberries, it also went well with a pork tenderloin served with Brussels sprouts and corn on the cob. It really is a juicy and versatile wine.

I rate this wine with a 9.5 using the scale on the left.

A divine meal with divine wines

I don’t expect there will be many times I will be able to enjoy classic wine with friends served with a delicious meal cooked with care. Just such a time occurred when Curt, Tim, Todd, Dan and I enjoyed a stunning meal, prepared by Tim, complimented with equally stunning wines, the 1989 and 1990 vintages of Château Lynch-Bages, a Sonoma-Cutrer 2009 Chardonnay, and a 1986 Sauternes from Château Lafaurie-Peyraguey.

Both of the Lynch-Bages vintages are highly-rated, but each is distinctly different from the other. The 1989 is subtle, the flavors nuanced and delicate: there’s tobacco followed by a long finish that continued to deliver surprises. The 1990 has firmer tannin, the fruit more noticeable with cassis, blackberry. They were served with delicious beef tenderloin and roasted Brussels sprouts. Initially I thought the 1990 was pairing better with the beef, but as the wines continued to take shape, it became clear the 1989 was the star performer.

Wine Spectator’s tasting notes show that both these wines still have a lot of time left on them.

WS notes on 1989 (from 2010): Delivers so much blackberry, leather and dried fruits on the nose. Full-bodied, with ultrapolished tannins and a silky mouthfeel. The palate turns to leaves, cedar and dried berries on the finish, which goes on and on. This is still reserved for the vintage, suggesting a long life ahead. Just coming around now, but will improve many years ahead. I have always loved this Lynch.

WS notes on 1990 (from 2007): Aromas of tar, currant and berries follow through to a full-bodied palate, with silky tannins and a long, long finish. Still not completely ready, but so good anyway. Age this as long as you like.

For me, the 1989 was clearly a 10 using my scale at the left, and I would rate the 1990 with a 9.5. Both wines were classic.

The earlier course of the evening was a cocksnail, a preparation of mashed potato mixed with a bit of wasabi and white truffle piped into a martini glass upon which was a prawn poached in court bullion made with vermouth, and snails. With this we had a Sonoma-Cutrer 2009 Chardonnay that was light and crisp, showing a character very similar to a white Burgundy. Definitely very easy drinking. I rate this wine a 9 using my scale at the left.

For dessert we had a fruit galette paired with a 1986 Sauternes from Château Lafaurie-Peyraguey. We had this same wine the prior evening, served on its own with some shortbread cookies. At that time it was rich, creamy and buttery like flan. Served with the fruit pastry dessert, however, it was delightful, light, the richness still present but without the deep flan character. Delicious.

WS rated this in 1989 with score of 86, and remarkably noted that it was, “Drinkable now or in the next three to five years.” Clearly this wine had much more life to it than was thought back in 1989, and I would rate it much higher with a 9.5 using my scale at the left.

Bordeaux meets Provence

I admit I am not very familiar with the wines of Bordeaux. I’m much more comfortable with the Rhône region; even with Burgundy I have had more experience than with Bordeaux. Many times when I’ve tasted inexpensive Bordeaux, they just haven’t been that impressive. And when it comes to the highly-rated vintages and houses, it’s just too expensive for me.

But I continue to dabble and a little more than a year ago I picked up two bottles of the 2005 Château la Bessane Margaux. It was highly rated (a 91 from Wine Spectator) and the price was great, just $22 a bottle.

Over Presidents Day weekend I planned a dinner around the wine. I used a recipe from the Woman’s Day “Famous French Cookery” 1969 edition for pot roast Provençal. I had tried this recipe out one time before using a pork tenderloin and it came out quite well. This was my first try with beef, however. I used a bottom round roast that I’m afraid I overcooked. Still, it was a hardy meal and the wine worked well, although I wasn’t sure at first.

Because when we first opened the bottle, the nose was nothing. Absolute zilch. And the taste? Again, nothing. You could sense there was something there, but it was definitely faint. I had heard about Bordeaux being delicate, but this was unnerving. Adding an aerator to the bottle helped bring out some of the character, and thankfully, as the wine breathed, the flavors began to come forward.

However, the fruit – some blackberry and there was a hint of licorice or anise – remained quite delicate against a light mineral backing. It was very smooth drinking, and went well with the beef despite the meat being overdone. I will definitely pay more attention to cooking times next time I prepare this.

Have any of you had a similar experience with Bordeaux? Particularly a young one? It certainly was a new experience for me.

Overall, it was a very nice experience. I will definitely hold on to the second bottle for a while to see how it matures. I rate this with a 9 using my 10-point scale at the left.

The secret of lamb stew

Do you know what the secret is for making delicious lamb stew? It’s the wine that you use to cook with.

Many years ago, I remember some chef on television talking about wine in a recipe. I can’t recall who the chef was, but the comment made an impact. He said that when cooking with wine, use a good wine, not some cheap “cooking wine” or other cheap swill. His comment was, “If you wouldn’t drink it by the glass, then why would you want to cook with it?”

Sage advice, indeed. And it holds up after repeated testing.

As you may recall, I wrote about a lamb stew that I went over the top with by cooking it with a 2004 Châteauneuf du Pape, and it was delicious! The second time I made lamb stew (sorry, I didn’t write about this one), I used a Sicilian red, the 2008 Cusumano Nero D’Avola. And that stew also was delicious! I’m talking really good folks, positively heavenly!

While the Châteauneuf du Pape I used was a $39 bottle of wine, the Sicilian was just $11 and still made an outstanding stew.

I recently made lamb stew again, and this time the wine I used was an inexpensive 2007 Bordeaux, Chateau du Pavillon. The stew was very good, but it wasn’t the same heavenly delight as the previous two batches had been. Your guests might never know the difference, unless they happen to eat a lot of lamb stew that you prepare. But this most recent experience will likely lead me to shy away from using a Bordeaux again. If there is anything I’ve learned so far, the closer to the Mediterranean you are with the wine, the better the lamb stew.

This latest serving was accompanied with the Saint Cosme 2009 Cotes du Rhone, a really splendid wine that isn’t going to cost you an arm and a leg. In fact, Saint Cosme is a very reliable producer of Cotes du Rhone, St. Joseph and Châteauneuf du Pape.

The Chateau du Pavillon I rate with an 8 using my scale at the left. The Saint Cosme I will rate with a 9.

But enough of that, here’s my recipe.

So far, I haven’t made a lamb stew using lamb stew meat. Rather, each time I’ve used the leftovers from a leg of lamb I prepared earlier. I’m usually left with at least a pound of meat, which I cut up into large cubes. Even all the other seasoning and preparations I retain (such as pine nuts, spinach, and goat cheese).

I brown this meat in a large kettle with a bit of olive oil. Next, I add about 32 ounces of beef broth and 2 cups of wine. That’s right, 2 bleeping cups of wine. To this I add 2 cloves of minced garlic, 1 teaspoon of dried marjoram, 1 bay leaf, and about a half teaspoon each of salt and pepper. After bringing this to a boil, reduce the heat and simmer for 20 to 30 minutes.

Next come the vegetables. After simmering long enough the meat is tender, add 2 cups of peeled potatoes cut into chunks, about 1.5 to 2 cups of sliced carrot, same amount of celery cut into half-inch slices and a half to three-quarters cup of chopped onion. Bring this back to a boil and then simmer again for another 30 minutes, or until the vegetables are tender.

Things are starting to smell really good about now.

When the vegetables are tender, remove the bay leaf. Take a half-cup of sour cream or plain yogurt and mix with 3 tablespoons of flour. Mix it well. Then take about a half-cup of the stew liquid and mix it with the flour and sour cream until smooth. Return that to the kettle and stir thoroughly, cooking for another minute or so. Your stew is ready now. Don’t faint when you taste it.