Natural Wine with M. Lapierre, Raisins Gaulois, Beaujolais, France, 2011 (and Northern Style Jambalaya)

If you want to do more reading on this wine and it's history, head over to:
Remembering Marcel Laperrier
Kermit Lynch's Bio on Marcel
Sommier Journal's interview with Mathieu

As for the wine, it is light, clean an persistent. It floats on the palate with a cleansing finish. I don't know how many times I can repeat the same thing. It's paring very well with Northern Style Jambalaya.


Northern Style Jambalaya: 

Ingredients:
1 Thyme Sprig
1 Diced clove of garlic
3 Stalks of Celery
2 Bell Peppers
4 Carrots
1 Spanish onion
1/4 cup of chives.
1 28oz can of diced tomatoes (or fresh)
3 Fresh Roma tomatoes.
1 bay leaf
4 Tbs butter
Roughly 3 Tbs four
Chicken Stock
Red Wine (Light red wine, like a Pinot Noir or Gammay.)
20 oz of Aborio Rice.
1lb Bratwurst sausages.
2 Cans of beer
Salt/Pepepr

Corseley chop the vegetables and put in bowl. Set aside.

In a 4 quart pot pour your beer, fill with water and bring to a boil. Add Brats and cook 3/4 of the way through.

When the sausage is about 1/4 of the way cooked, melt 4 tbs of butter in a large pot add enough four to make a mush. This is your roux, let it turn golden brown and add the chopped veggies (minus the tomatoes) and cook until they sweat out. Drain tomatoes and add them along with enough wine to replace the liquid drained from the can. Bring mixture to a simmer. When the sausage is 3/4 of the way done cut it up into discs and brown in an 8 in omelet pan.

After a few minuets and add the rice and sausage. Stir and add chicken stock to the top of the mixture. Wait, when the rice absorbs all the liquid, add some more chicken stock. Continue to add stock until rice is done. You can add wine if you want. When the rice is done so is your Northern Rice dish. Salt and pepper to taste. 

Gewürztraminer and Porchetta (Porketta) Sandwiches.

I've been wanting, waiting to attempt another U.P. wine pairing. It had to be a main dish regularly consumed by the traditional families from all heritages. After Pasties, its Porketta sandwiches. Porchetta is a pork tender loin wrapped in pork belly tied and thoroughly coated with an herb paste. With a long list of work to do outside,  I decided to purchase a roast from Econo Foods in Iron Mountain.  To cook the porchetta, put the roast in a cooking bag, set the oven to 350 and wait for 2-4 hours (depending if you want to shred your pork or slice it).  The sandwich is a toasted hardroll with butter lettuce and extra virgin olive oil. 

Chateau Grand Traverse, Old Mission Peninsula, Traverse City, Michigan, Gewürztraminer 2011

Medium, bordering on light body.  There is lemon on the nose, but more of the processed lemon smell. It smells like a lemon the same way that a “Lemon Drop” candy tastes like a lemon. I like that aspect of this wine; it reminds me of eating candy during recess.  Along with the lemon, there is a strong presence of white flowers. Usually I like a floral nose, but this is over powering.  The label lists a lot of flavors, “Lychee, citronella, ginger… apricot, pear, nectar and starfruit.”  Sure if you break it down, all those flavors could be picked out one by one, but it’s easier just to lump them together as “white flowers.”

Paired with the prochetta alone, the two are disjointed. The perfume washes away the spice to leave one with the taste of the meat. Not only do you left with the pork flavor, you are also subjected to the perfume of those white flowers.  With the addition of the butter lettuce, olive oil and toasted hard roll, the pairing gets better. I had a bit of the lettuce, olive oil and salt on the side. When paired with the wine, the whole mixture takes on an earthy quality that outshines the pork pairing.

André Scherer, Haut-Rhin, Alsace, France, Gewürztraminer, 2010

Light body, bone dry. Medium high acid. Medium-short finish. The lemon that was in the Michigan is replaced by, juicy ripe pear. It doesn’t try too much, this wine feels more structured and less mucked with. I have less to say, because I like wine better.

As a food wine it works better with the porchetta alone than with the sandwich. Including the green, olive oil and bread seems to muddle the experience. We are already presented with everything in the spice rub, pork belly and pork loin. It’s a lot to process. I like this wine, with just the porchetta and rice, maybe a vegetable side. 

The Alsatian wine, standing alone, won the day. The one place where Michigan did better was when the olive oil and crispy bread were introduced. Coming in at noon, after putting up a fence and wolfing down a sandwich, I liked the Chateau Grand Traverse better. There are bold and big flavors that can hold you until supper. If I was sitting down to supper, after a quick shower and a few episodes of Newhart, the Andre Scherer would be the Gewürztraminer on the table.  

With this all said, I think that my initial impulse to pair Porchetta with Gewürztraminer was a little hasty. Somewhere out there is a wine that doesn't hit so hard on the nose, has a little bit of sweetness and less body. Looks like I'm going to have to try this experiment again with Riesling. 

Vincent et Denis Berthaut, Les Clos Vineyard (Village), Fixin, Cote de Nuits, Cote de Or, Burgundy, France, 1995

Unitl 1987 Fixin was the most northern AOC in the Cote de Nuits,  then in 87 Marsenay was granted an AOC.  Since 1995 this bottle has been closed, we just opened it. 

I want to strap this glass on my nose, walking around all day only with the smell of 18 year old Fixin in my nostrils. The nose has, lavender and marjoram. Violets and more lavender on the palette with a nice smoky wood. Unlike Burgundies older than this one, it still has life and body. Like older Burgs it has the brickyard red and a bouquet of the earth. 

The nose just keeps opening up, Potpourri surrounding and enveloping all the senses (except sight, hearing and touch).

ABV: 13%

Cases Made: Doesn’t matter

 Price: $50

Jean Michel Gerin, Condrieu, Northern Rhone, France, Voigner, 1998

This fifteen year old Voigner has butterscotch without any of that cloying sweetness, or any sweetness at all. Green tea oxidation that leaves the mouth immediately but keeps the taste for a long finish.  Great mouth feel, medium acid that bites across the entire palate.  Everything is clicking, the cylinders are in alignment.

ABV: 13%

Cases Produced: roughly 625 (That’s just through arithmetic not any real statistic. There are 40 producers of Condrieu in the Northern Rhone. There was roughly 300,000 bottles of this stuff made in 1998. So 300,000/40 gets you 625.)

Price: $52 per bottle. 

Pasty Pairing 2013 Round 2

Italian fest is full swing today and the City of Iron Mountain is a buzz.  The farmer’s market is marketing. Young people stroll the streets looking for love and pasties. I imagine when they get older they will want to drink a wine that both reflects the deep Italian roots of the community and goes well with a pasty. For the final round I present two wines that may fit my pre-ramble, Damilano, Barolo (Nebbiolo) 2003 and Vietti, Lehie, Nebbiolo 2009.

Damilano, Barolo Lecinquevigne, Barolo, Piedmont, Italy 2003.

 Tasting notes:

Hour 1: dark cherry, blackberry, light body, medium to short finish. Medium tannins.

Hour 2: The dark fruit is more pronounced and the tannins have evened out tremendously. A full and bountiful mouthfeel.

ABV: 14%

Cases Made:  7,500

Release Price: $4

Vietti, Nebbiolo, Langhe, Piedmont, Italy 2009

Tasting notes:

Hour 1: Bright cherry, medium-heavy tannins (nowhere near a tannic Cab, but certainly not Gammay)

Hour 2: Still a bit tannic, bright cherry, red liquorish (not in the zinfandel way though)

ABV: 14%

Cases Made: 4,000

Release Price: $25

Conclusion:

The problem here is that there are two different vintages of the same grape, country and even region. The ’09 Vietti takes a bit to open up, but the tannins bind with the protein so well that it’s hard to like the ’03 Barolo more…but it do. Less abrasive and that dark cherry note slices through the pasty, is what places the ’03 Damilano Barolo above the ’09 Vietti.  If you can’t find or don’t want to bring a $45 dollar wine to the UP, I would try to find the Vietti or in the least a Nebbiolo based wine.

I love how incorporated the tannins are in this older Nebbiolo wine. This incorporation creates a great shape in one’s mouth; it reminds me of an old, mostly deflated, soccer ball. That’s not a bad thing, an old soccer ball is pliable but not elastic. It’s easier to play with; the ball won’t fly out of your yard if you give it a little tap. When you kick it too hard, the ball just sinks into your foot and dribbles away.  The different parts of the pasty play with and against the ’03 Damilano, but neither side is keeping score.

Plan Pegau Lot 2010 Vs. Barolo Lecinquevigne 2003

That funk of the Plan Pegau was nice, but the Dark cherry and acid components in the ’03 Damilano, complemented the pasty so well that I have to declare it the champion. 

Pasty Pairing 2013: Round 1

A vacation, a real vacation. Not a two day grueling drive from Trolland to The Superior State, a true five day chance to relax. Anyway, you didn't come here to listen to me gloat. As a common frequenter of The Land of the Consummate Pasty, I had to take this opportunity to provide a public service.

The Pasty (or Pastie, the spelling varies by shop) is a half meat pie in a lard crust traditionally filled with ground beef, potato and rutabaga. Created Cornwall and brought to the Upper Peninsula in the 1860's after the mining collapsed in their homeland. Later waves of Finnish, Italian and Eastern European immigrants to the Western U.P. incorporated the pasty to their diet as portable and dense meal that will keep you going, in the mines or in the field.

For this paring experiment I'm using frozen pasties from The Pasty Oven, purchased from the store on US-2. Although fresh baked pasties should be used, with out knowing how long to decant each of the wines beforehand, timing the trip to the shop would be near impossible. With 20+ years of eating pasties in Iron Mountain, I can say, with confidence, that the The Pasty Oven makes the best pasty that you can buy.

Wines: 

Round 1

French Southern Rhone Blend (Plan Pegau, Lot: 2010), 

SpanishTempranillo (Marques de Caceres Gran Reserva Rioja, 2004)

Washington Merlot (Hedge Family Estate's La Bourgeoisie, Merlot, 2010)

Round 2

Italian Nebbiolo (Vietti, Nebbiolo, Perbacco, Langhe, 2009)

Italian Borolo (Damilano, Barolo 2003)

Round 3:

Best of Round 1 and 2

Plan Pegau “Lot: 2010”, Southern Rhone, France 

From owner Laurence Feaud of Domaine du Pegau, the Chateauneuf-du-Pape (CdP)  producer, comes Plan Pegau.  CdP (Chateauneuf-du-Pape), is a village in the Southern Rhone Valley of France. Apart from being a village, CdP is also a wine style that incorporates thirteen different grapes into its final blend.  That blend can only be called CdP if the grapes contained are from the Village of CdP.

So what if a wine producer in the Village of CdP wants to create wine in the style of CdP from grapes grown outside the village? You do what Laurence Feaud did, call it table wine from the Southern Rhone and slap your label on it. I don’t know why it’s labeled lot 2010 instead of the vintage (obviously 2010), but I’m excited to get started.

Tasting Notes:

Hour 1: Tight cinnamon, savory, tannic. Might be a while

Hour 2: (Buying Pasty and other supplies)

Hour 3: Cinnamon, Liquorish on the nose and eucalyptus on the palate. Smooth, light tannin, medium finish with the taste of tart cherries.

Paring:

To begin, the spice and the ‘funk’ in the wine matches well with the black pepper in the pastie. On the other side, those tart cherries complement the rutabaga quite well. It will be hard to match this.

ABV: 13.5%

Cases Made: 5,000

Price $16

Marques de Caceres, Gran Reserva, La Rioja, Spain 2004

Since Grand Reserva Rioja is a little straighter forward to understand than Plan Pegau, I’ll just put up a link.

Tasting Notes:

On the initial pour, I thought it was doing great so I stuck the cork back in.

3hr’s: Not a good idea, I thought three hours would put the wine over the edge, I was wrong. The tannins cut into the palate on the first sip. Raspberries, cherries an minerality in a big way.  

Paring:

Still showing a lot of tannin after a few hours out, I will have to revisit this wine in the morning. After another 5 years or decade it might be a great pop and pour, not now. I’m disappointed for what I spent on this wine. Marques de Caceres Grand Reserva does not play well with others.

ABV: 14%

Cases Imported: 2,000

Price $35

The House of Independent Producers, La Bourgeoisie, Merlot, Bacchaus Vineyard, Columbia Valley, Washington, USA, 2010.

Tasting Notes:

Big Merlot! oak and strawberry with a clean if short finish. Has an addicting floral nose. La Bourgeoisie may be a dark horse.

Paring:

A fun conversation piece and a good cocktail wine, but this Merlot is staying off the table. La Bourgeoisie gets obliterated by all aspects of this Pasty. The heaviness of the crust and the texture of the beef drown out the mouthfeel. The black pepper overrides the any oak or strawberry. Very little of it works (Tasted with a less peppery pasty; the same thing happened.)

ABV: 14%

Cases Made: 6,000

Price $13

Winner Round 1

Southern Rhone Blend Plan Pegau Lot: 2010 

Blue Skies On and On, 1978 Domaine Remoissenet, Aloxe-Corton, Diamond Jubilee, Village, Burgundy, France and 2001 Alter Ego de Palmer, Margaux, Bordeaux, France.

The lawn was in desperate need of mowing at the farm and I hadn't had a decent wine in three or so weeks. My dilemma had thus presented itself. If I remained in Lansing, the grass and weeds in the UP would become so unmanageable that an application of machete to leaf would be required to halt its growth. If was to go away, I  wouldn't be able to find aged Burgundy. The dilemma was solved when my friend with the 1978 Village Aloxe-Corton allowed me to bring him and his wine.  Buoyed by this development and overflowing with general goodwill for all mankind I brought my 2001 Alter Ego de Palmer to help match Eric's generosity.

Took out the grill, some maple from the woodshed, the lamb shanks and proceeded to grill supper. The meal we planned was the thing one dreams up after a grueling week in the salt mines reading about the ultra-rich throwing baby showers for one another.

Upon removal of the capsule, the scene presented us with dirt. Not the taste of, nor an analogy to dirt but the actual stuff. The cork was free from it, but how and where did that dirt come from?

Brown sugar and almost a bean protean that faded in the finish. It is amazing how well this wine has kept, it showed much younger than my previous experiences with older Burgundy.





We decanted the 2001 Alter Ego de Palmer for an hour in the bottle. It needed that hour to put weight on the mid-pallet. You get that sea influence mixed with the wonderful notes of tomato and pepper only found in better Bordeaux with a few years behind them. Eric found a Ridge Zin at Jack's Market in Manistique. It was delicious, even better in the red reduction. Lamb always needs yogurt, youg and red and asparagus. When you work hard and drink well, there is nothing left to do but play cards and pass out.

Paul Jacqueson, Premiere Cru, Gresigny, Rully, Cote Chalonnaise, Burgundy, France, 2007

1st taste: A lot of musk on the nose and front palate that blew off. Finishes with whip cream and sticks around.

1 hour: Perfume on the nose. The musk is gone completely leaving a nice round mouth feel.

2 hours: Strong perfume with a lighter milk finish that lasts. Still good.

3 hours: The floral nose is dying off and the minerality in the finish is more pronounced at this point. Different notes are beginning to muddle.

4 hours: Last glass held steady from the 3 hour mark.

This wine started as a cube on the palate. Little by little it dented the box, rounding itself off over time. No where close a perfect sphere but it could roll down a slope with minimal coaxing. 

Bubble, Napa and Austria Sunday

It was a cold march day when I brought over a Bozy and O'Shaughnessy to Eric's Sunday lunch. You may be asking, "Matt, who are those people?" I would respond, "Those aren't people you, mouth-breathing dolt! Naw, I'm just busting your hump, the first one is a Champagne and the other one is a Napa Valley Cabernet Sauvignon." Thanks for not getting too upset over that rhetorical device. Anywho, this was a great set of wines. The third wine was a Blaufrankish varietal from the Southern Austrian region of Carnuntum. Before I get into what that last sentence meant let's talk about the first two guys.

I have talked about a few different wines that are mainly Cabernet Sauvignon. Those wines would have been from Bordeaux, which are (usually) a blend of Cab, Merlot, Cabernet Franc or Petit Verdot. The last two are mainly used for color and texture. The 2009 O'Shaughnessy, however, is 100% Cabernet Sauvignon, there is no other grape used in it. One can taste the difference. Usually I shy away from Big American Red Wines, in this case I couldn't stay away. For such a young wine, one would expect a brash and big tannin (that stuff that makes your mouth dry, like in tea). That really wasn't the case. Yes, it had the big American berry, but only a little bit of anise. What impressed me the most was the finish, which lasted at least 30-50 second. Decant this for a while, maybe 3hrs in the mean time drink some Champagne.

O'Shaughnessy, Howell Mountian Vineyard, Napa Valley, Califonia, Cabernet Sauvignon, 2009.

ABV: 14.8%
Cases Made: Sub 2500
Average Price: $--

That O'Shaughnessy was too good a wine not to talk about, in fact, it made me think twice about Napa Reds. Don't worry that was the most expensive one of the day. The next one is from a little town called Bozy in Champagne, France. Yes, I am not making that up, look at the label. I am so happy, and astounded that this wine made it's way from Bozy to East Lansing. Barnaut is a Recoltant Manipulants (RM) or Single Producer Sparkling Wine from Champagne. As of this moment, there are three types of production methods in Champagne; Negotiated Producer (Negociant Manipulant (NM)), Cooperative Producer (CM) and Single Producer (RM). An NM house makes its wine from grapes purchased from growers around Champagne. A CM producer is just what it sounds like, a Co-op, growers with stake in the company that share in the profits. Finally, an RM owns it's own vineyards and makes it's own wine. There are wide and ongoing debates about the merits and quality of wine from each production method.
Enough background, if I am wrong then some one tell me, all I could taste was Chardonnay with only a little bit of Pinot Noir. Just a great round mouth feel and swirling effervescence.

ABV: 12%
Cases Made:?
List Price: $40

What do you say about a wine that you know nothing about and spent the last two hours researching wines that you actually knew? Well check out the WIKI page on the grape Blaufrankisch. Got it? Good, yeah this was a fun and interesting wine, it tasted similar if only grittier than Pinot Noir. That only means that it reminded me of the grape, not it's end result. It has it's own distinct taste and mouth feel, almost like a Gamay and an Pinot and something else I cant put my finger on. Was spicy enough to hold up against Beef stew and carrots.

ABV: 13%
Cases Made: NO IDEA
List Price:$27




O.K. that's a wrap or Old Kinderhook as Bradly Cooper tells us in "Silver Linings Playbook" (I added the wrapping portion). 

Au Bon Climat, Rincon and Rosemary's Vineyard, Arroyo Grande Valley, Sonoma County, California, Pinot Noir,1994.

California 1994

2 Pac and Notorious Big have begun their fatal feud outside of Quad Studios in November of '94. At the same time while folks where mispronouncing Jim Clendenen's last name he was vintning his Rincon and Rosemary's Vineyard Pinot Noir. Upon its completion, a bottle was placed into storage and eventually purchased by someone. 

This wine doesn't feel as old as all that. I mean really, it tastes like an '06 or even an '09 of Cali Pinot. It has a weight and depth that transitions very well from the front to the back of the palate. The only low point, that isn't that low is in the second mid palate, if you know what I'm talking about. I sure don't. Fruit forward and a great tang of acidity. 

ABV: 13,5%

Cases Made: 300

Release Price: $40 

Purchase Price: $35 

Clos Margalaine, Bordeux, Medoc, Margaux, 2005

Ended up decanting for 4hrs these are the notes we took down: 

1-1:30
After some time the anise fades and the oak grows. Juicy and generous on the blackberry. Tasting a black olive. 

2-3hr
Still a tastes like a New World Red but now the anise has soffened to make this wine recognizable as a Margaux. 

4hr
A little biter, oak has calmed down and the gravel (sand and rock) is beginning to shine. There is almost a peach flavor and I am still getting that fun black olive. 

This wine longs to move out to California, but decided to stick around and help the family. 

A great wine at a great price. 2005 is not ready to drink yet but as the second wine of a great small producer, this is another must get. Make this is your first "expensive wine"

ABV: 13%
Cases Made: Few
List Price: $31

Nicolas Feuillatte, Palmes d'Or, Champagne, France, 1999.

My goodness, this is outstanding. I get it, I finally get Champagne.  Folks usually think, "Don't taste it; drink up." When celebrating and drinking Champagne. I counter; "take your time, savor, enjoy the yeast and the overripe apple." Really, this  Champagne (!) has crisp texture I have not yet to experienced in an A Chouilly, and keeping a round mouth feel.

 The delicacy of the wine shows through the  effervescence, displaying a blend of cinnamon and nutmeg.When you think about nutmeg think about the texture on your palette of nutmeg.

I hope that you have a chance to try this wine, if you don't I feel sorry for you and your life. If you have no ambition to taste it then there is only more sorrow.

ABV 12%
Release Price: $135
Retail Price (Ebay, prob. stolen Ed. '17): $77