Vacation Gourmet Part One

We're on vacation at the DE shore this week, doing some much needed R&R, which typically includes considerable amount of culinary therapy.

Tonight, we've planned a 5-course meal to enjoy al fresca at la casa familia de la playa. First up:

Scallops sauteed in butter with a white wine and garlic sauce.

Wine pairing: Coteaux D'Ancenis Malvoisie

This fine French white - we believe from the muscadet varietal, pairs excellently with the seawater delicacy of these locally harvested scallops. Seared gently in butter, and finished with a pinch of garlic powder and 1/4 cup of the Malvoisie, the scallops just melt on the tongue, while a sip of the wine provides a subtle lemon edge. The overall effect is of plentiful citrus groves kissed by fresh ocean air, all on one tiny plate.

The Northbound End of a Southbound Horse

2006 Laurent Miquel Syrah Granache - France

This vin de pays from the southern Languedoc is one of those revolutionary French wines where they actually advertise on the label what grapes they've put into the wine! Imagine that.

Using a 75/25 Syrah-Grenache blend, Laurent Miquel gets plenty of body while preserving a bold, bright fruitiness. The bouquet is of barn and herb, with just the slightest hint of horse's ass. This is in no way a knock against the wine - horsey flavors are one of my favorite bouquets.

Balancing the herb, barn, and hint of chocolate (Syrah's most signature quality), is a pleasantly rich, ripe, almost jammy note of dark fruit, like blackberry or blueberry, but hard to pin down.

For the 10-15$ price-point, Laurent Miquel puts together some very drinkable wines. But, they are by no means phenomenal. Another standout in their portfolio is the Viognier under the Nord Sud label.

Uncle Maddy

So, I ask my sommelier to sell me something bloggable last night, and this is what he gives me:

Montus 2004 - Madiran

As with all French wine, you think "ok. well wtf is it?"

Madiran is in Gascony, and it's one of the last villages in south-west France before paella replaces baguette. This appellation only does red wine, and it has to be 40-60% Tannat. Montus is 80% tannat. If you haven't had tannat before, wuh-mai-gad, its huge. They use Cabernet Sauvignon to SOFTEN it. C-a-b-e-r-n-e-t. Uncle Cab, who's too fat to fit through the living-room door. Well if Uncle Cab can't get in the living room, Uncle Maddy comes to visit by crane and has to stay outside.

This one is like meatloaf: seemingly better as leftovers, so give it 5 mins. Using a decanter would not be foolish. If you're into the wine foreplay like I am, seriously, be careful. If you breathe too deep, you will burn your face, and the inside of your nose •will• catch on fire. There is some nice plum up front, but expecting this wine to be primarily about fruit is like going to Jean George's hoping to catch a ride on a double-saddled mechanical bull. T'ain't gonna happen. It's not a perfect metaphor, because in the mid-palate (and incidentally why I think you should drink it), it's really nicely balanced with that ripe plum, but make no mistake that this wine is massively tannic. So, I guess what I'm saying is: "ride em cowboy." If you have 2 over-poured glasses of this, everyone will certainly know because:

1. You will be drunk: at 16% alcohol, it's going to happen
and
2. Your teeth will be the color of beet soup.

Anything short of a roasted leg of lamb and a Honduran cigar for dessert might be foolish.

Leflaiverless

My default to date seems favor the celebration of the spectacular and the intriguing. So fair being fair, and as Rick Moranis clearly tells us in Spaceballs: "there's two sides to every Schwartz," I think it's only prudent to introduce this Pinot Noir.

Olivier Leflaive Cuvée Margot 2006 - Burgundy

This one's from Burgundy, which means pinot noir, and it's from the Cote de Beaune (which is cluster number 2/5 from north to south as you travel down the Saône River).

Let the drums of war sound, but I think this wine sucks balls (pardon my French, but I do choose my words very carefully here). Actually, maybe I haven't chosen my words carefully enough, because if at least it *smelled* like balls, we'd be closer to the character of north Burgundy that I love: that deft balance of tender and sedate fruit with the subtle musk of earth-driven truffle and barnyard animal petting-zoo funk. Ok, YES I was fooled by the cherry and wild strawberry on the nose, but when this wine hits your mouth, the fruit on this '06 is like the four-headed man-eating haddock fish-beast of Aberdeen: it doesn't exist.

What I'm left with is tannin, acid, and a long leathery finish. Someone left the tea bag in too long. At least it's not flabby pinot, I guess, but then what's worse- Donatella Versace when she's on the beach or after she's been all pinned up? You decide.

My advice on this is to cut up some fruit, throw some ice cubes into a carafe, and make Sangria. I'm sure Margot, Olivier's daughter, would certainly agree that this wine is about as useful as a pack of one-legged hunting tortoises.

Violet, You're Turning Violet, Violet

I'm shockingly making the switch here to white much earlier than I though I would, not because of New World's preceding post (which sounds like a delicious October Nicoise salad actually), but because this one needs to be shared immediately.

Clos de la Coulée de Serrant 2003 - Loire Valley

It's one of the first Domaines in on the river and 100% Chenin Blanc.

You know when Violet eats the Everlasting-Gobstopper in Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory? Well after 30 seconds with this chenin, I know exactly what she was talking about (minus the swelling into a giant blueberry).  And for all of you turned off by the distinctly French lilt and the length of the producer's name, it's just French for "Thanksgiving Dinner, but backwards."

You get dessert up front: a gorgeous tart and baked granny smith apple and cinnamon pie, except Granny baked the pie for 17 minutes too long, because she went to take her pills, but got distracted by the cat who had lodged itself between the fire place and the wood-bin, which upon having resolved the matter, fell asleep, forgetting what she was doing (meanwhile, pie's on fire).  The pie is certainly burnt, but she got lucky, because the honey glazed crust is nicely caramelized.  Then a savory and minerality from the bird, and a citrus cranberry sauce.  Distinctly at the end, and very strangely I might add, is the walk up from the car to the front door: the taste of pineneedle and cone, as you smack into the branch mouth first.

This chenin blanc is you at the end of the day's feast: gutt-bustingly fat, full of alcohol, but knowing it was satisfyingly worth it.

Nice is Nice

This one's from just outside of Nice, in Provence:

Clos de Bernarde Tete de Cuvée 1997 - Provence

Mourvedre up front, and grenache and syrah close behind.

What's so deliciously striking about this one is that it most certainly IS a woman I met tonight at my bar. At first whiff, certainly sophisticated (and you know that's not going to go anywhere anytime soon), but still humbly elite. She's not Bordeaux (Greenwich, for these purposes: a more than slight sigh of relief there), but Darien, or even better: Westport. There is ample fruit right up front with luscious, and I mean luscious tart calvados-ed cherries. But strangely, and wonderfully right behind it and pervading is mushroom from a shit-strewn field, without any negative connotation. She is elegant and seductively graceful, but surreptitiously throws in the Waterbury for fun. It keeps her self-aware, and extremely well balanced. And at $25 or so retail, she's a steal. My guess is the metaphor will hold up to the point of the price.

I don't know, I'll find out Sunday. But I'll let you know.

On the Subject of Malbec

So, this is a beauty that I must admit I have had flirtations with on and off, but with whom I have never really sat down to have good and maybe even well-deserved heart to heart.

Chateau Lagrezette 2003-Cahors

100% malbec from Cahors, just east of Bordeaux.

Now before everyone gets all huffy about Mendoza where "Malbec is a Star," (New World, some few odd days ago), a sentiment to which I could certainly agree sometimes, lets not forget that Cahors birthed this sassy varietal (a 38 hour delivery to triplets, it was reported). Summer in Cahors is like spending a day on a reclined chair pool-side, a 12 minute drive from the Sun. It's under these conditions that Malbec delivers its juicy, sun-burst fruit and tannin.

Were this particular one a house, it would be a split level duplex: Upstairs on the nose and first sip is an American-Empire kitchen and living room of this slowly mulled and delicately spiced plum. "Lovely, I think I'll take it."

Downstairs is a wall to wall piss-up: a stereo blasting Nine-Inch Nails, rampant chair and bottle throwing, and at the center of which is an open fire roasting a cauldron of piquillo peppers, applewood bacon cut extra fat, and whole-roasted goat meat. "I'll definitely take it, especially with all the downstairs storage space."

The Pink Pussycat

I'm now of the mindset that a good evening should always begin with bubbly. But just a brief preface here: If you had told me a few years ago that I would be caught dead drinking rosé champagne, I'd have said you were crazy. Let it then just be a testament to my conversion that I chose it for a first pick.

Paul Goerg Rosé, Premier Cru Non-Vintage

It's a Brut Champagne from Vertus, 85% chardonnay and 15% pinot noir.

If indeed it was a woman, it would certainly be Grand-Dutchess Inga Von Herrhausen: Draped in fine pink silk and dazzling diamonds, this tartine of a woman is elegance and grace at its finest, but she can still swat a top-spinned backhand with the best of her servants' tennis partners, and certainly has the body to prove it. Bright, bright strawberries and grapefruit that have been quite noticeably toasted in an applewood-chipped oven. Wonderful fruit, but remember she can still side-saddle, swing on vines, scale walls, etc. There is an affirming body that lets you drink it anytime; at the beginning, half-way through, or when all's said 'n done. And what a lasting finish of cream: if this strumpet had a soundtrack, song number one would be "Peaches and Cream," by Beck.

I could have 3/4 of a bottle and not even know it.