Chez Moi, a la Lyon

There's a certain culinary satisfaction in researching the cuisine of a specific region. Even if it merely means whipping up 1 or 2 typical dishes and serving the appropriate, corresponding regional wine. I did just that today for a few core members of my wine tasting group, which convened tonight to discuss how we might meet monthly throughout the year.

Over cervelles de canut (recipe at bottom), carrots and celery, bread and housemade paté and paté de campagne from Bi-Rite market, we caught up with each other, listened to some records, and eventually got down to the business of wine tasting group stuff in 2010.

The wines we drank:

2007 Domaine Fery Bourgone Aligote

Sharply acidic (in a good way) and lightly marked by oak. This is as good an aligoté I have had since a glass of Lignier Aligoté I drank this past October. Great for drinking, and wonderful for Lyonnaise whipped cheese aka cervelles de canut.

2005 Trenel Macon Village

Perfectly pleasant, waxy, ripe orchard fruit. Not very compelling though admittedly put in a tough spot following the high acid, younger, aligoté,

2007 Daniel Bouland Morgon Vieilles Vignes

Delicious wine! From the courcelette vineyard (see: Foillard cuvee courcelette), this is all pure tangy cherry fruit with a slight mineral stamp. More about approachability and fun, though, than minerality and firmness.

2008 Coudert "Clos de la Roillette" Fleurie

My favorite wine of the night. This is unsually approachable at its young age, but still a wine with a strong personality. It has a definite mineral/soil imprint on the nose, which carries over to the palate as well. Soil, I'm saying, quite literally. If you ever go to the gardening supplies section of a hardware store, then this wine will smell familiar. Equally memorable on the palate, with the intense minerality combining with pungent red fruits, more cranberry than the usual raspberry/cherry Beaujo combination. The wine has a thick, palate coating texture (despite the relatively light hue in the glass) though it finishes lightly and elegantly. Wonderful stuff. I need to buy some.

2001 Domaine Joël Rochette Pisse-Vieille Brouilly

This bottle was something our group tasted a few years ago. It was controversial at that tasting, as it was much older than the other wines we were tasting (which were primarily from the 2005 vintage) but still held much appeal for many of us. Tonight it showed well. Dark cherry fruit, ripe and just short of stewed, with a more deeply pitched and mature quality, although still mineral and not heavy on the palate. Lovely and surprsingly tasty given its vintage and cru.

2007 Edmunds St. John "Porphyry" Gamy Noir El Dorado

From a single vineyard in the Sierra foothills, this was the ringer of the night. Though tasting it, even before the other wines, it struck me as good but not Beaujolais, which of course makes sense as it hails from a vineyard far away from Beajolais (though apparently there is a concentration of granite beneath these vines). With focused fruit, and 13% alcohol, this is a tasty California wine, albeit without much of a mineral or specific regional stamp to it.

Cervelles de Canut (Silk worker's brains)

Don't worry, no brains involved here. In fact, the dish is vegetarian. The dish received its name because it is what silk workers in Lyon used to eat daily. Combine 8 oz good quality fromage blanc (or young goat cheese), 1/4 c white wine, 2 tbs olive oil and a minced large shallot either in your Cuisinart or with a hand blender (I opt for the latter; we are still sans Cuisinart here for anyone who wants to send us one). Some recipes call for a bit of creme fraiche and white wine vinegar instead of wine; I prefer high acid white wine (aligote works great) and a dollop of good dijon mustard. Mix in 1 tbs chopped chives. Season with salt and pepper to taste. Serve with celery and carrots, or for the purists place on top of good quality toasted bread.

Chicken Lyonnaise

I adapted my version from The Escoffiere Cookbook. Basically, I used a 50-50 mix of butter and oil (a substitue for clarified butter) and added a bunch of destemmed, chopped Swiss chard during the last 5 minutes of cooking. The "veal gravy" referenced below is actually chicken stock thickened with corn starch. Here is the Master's version, in his own words:

1563-Poulet Sauté Lyonnaise

Sauté the chicken in butter and, when it is half-cooked, add three fair sized onions, thinly sliced, tossed in butter and slightly browned. Complete the cooking of the chicken and the onions together, and put it on a dish. Swirl with one-sith pint of veal gravy; reduce; pour this liquor and the onions over the chicken, and sprinkle the whole with a pinch of chopped parsley. (Escoffier, The Escoffier Cookbook)

The Wine Bloggentsia Meet-up at Terroir

Well, it's 12:25am. Not too long ago, I saw David McDuff and his wife Lorie out the door after a lovely dinner at our apartment. He got the full, dinner at Natalie and Joe's experience: late start, late finish, paper towel napkins, and some simple, humbly thrown together food in between.

As I'm awake and trying to re-instill a sense of diligence and discipline on the blog, I thought I might write up a list of some wines we (McDuff, Slaton, Wolfgang, Emily and, to a lesser extent since they were on the clock, Cory and Dagan) drank on Monday night at Terroir, with brief personal tasting notes occasionally spiced by others' perspectives.

2007 Tavijn Grignolino - There is more soul and Piedmont-ness in this delicious bottle than many Baroli and Barbaresco out there. Serious, broad, earthy cherry aromas lead to a tense, tangy dark cherry, brooding, and, especially for the grape variety, serious mouthful of wine. I love good Grignolino, and this is probably better than my previous favorite by at least 30% or so. I drank the Tavijn with a margherita pizza made outside a local bar in an oven attached to a trailer. Not great, but certainly decent enough for street pizza. Poletana pizza was the name.

2008 Domaine de la Tournelles Poulsard - Reductive and a bit mean on the nose. Flavors were all tart red fruit which went straight to the sides of the mouth and back of the palate, not much of anything on the mid-palate. I'd usually enjoy this, but for some reason various elements were not in particularly good balance. It was a bit funky and sharp, not too pleasant. Slaton and I were chatting Poulsard. How Puffeny makes some great Poulsard from which he somehow coaxes great depth of flavor and texture. Tissot is too pristine and not close to that level for either of us. Tournelles, he was saying, is tempramental and occasionally funky, which I experienced in full force. The wine did settle down and improve somewhat, however. When it comes to world class Poulsard, there is Puffeney and there is Houillon, which Cory was saying could be sold for upwards of $60 to the fervently supportive natural wine drinkers in Japan. Maybe just the Dressner company line, but fuck it - I know how good the wine is and how Japan fetishizes certain things as only Japan can. So tightly allocated Poulsard, here we go. One of my co-workers would really get a kick out of that, allocated natural Poulsard - Champagne Gary, I fucking kid you not, it exists....

2002 Clos Rougeard Saumur-Champigny (opened two days prior)

Thanks to Slaton for bringing the remains of this bottle. He was mentioning a wine with almost Morey St Denis type flavors upon opening. After a few days, the tell-tale cab franc veg notes were there, but so was tasty, savory, dark fruit and a really elegant, silken texture. Would have loved to follow this wine from opening to where it was last night.

2004 Rollin Pernand-Vergelesses 1er Cru Sous Fetille

To my minimally trained (and minimally appreciative) white burgundy palate, I much preferred this producer's villages, which actually has some Pinot Blanc in the blend, to this 1er cru which I'm assuming has a lot less or none at all. Much more overt oakiness, alcohol, and lack of togetherness in this wine, even as it fleshed out and integrated over the course of a little longer than an hour. It still wasn't doing it for me then, though I stood squarely in the minority on this one. Chalk it up to chardonnay and French oak hating, but I was really disappointed here. On a brighter note, the last sip was nearly enjoyable.

2004 Rollin Pernand-Vergeless

OK, I actually drank this wine at Terroir a week ago, but it made quite the positive impression. Plus, as much as I liked it I did not want to leave on a negative note for Rollin given my experience with his wine above. This wine had everything I was wishing it's slightly fancier sibling had: rich texture, impeccable balance, mouth expansive, delicious stone fruit flavors offset by lightly roasted nuts. The elegance and flavor development in this wine made it one of my favorite chardonnay based wines of the past couple years for me. I'm not much of a chardonnay guy, though, so take that for what it's worth.

2008 Dashe L'Enfant Terrible Zinfandel McFadden Farm Potter Valley

A bit oakier than I remember it, a suspicion that was confirmed when I learned that there were not enough grapes to fill up Dashe's beloved larger foudre. I prefer last year's, though I must say that the last sip o this 2 oz taste, consumed 40 or so minutes after it was poured, was showing very well, drier and more structured than it had showed upon first pouring.

2007 Foillard Morgon "Cuvee Courcelette"

Another wine geek wine. This was peppery and quite reductive initially, showing tense and structured gamay fruit which eventually opened up and softened a bit. It's very mineral and a bit backward out the gate, but really opens up with air. Tasty stuff, and worthy of the bonafide wine geek coveted beaujolais status.

2001 Bunan Bandol "Moulindes" (375ml)

I was joking with DMcD tonight that perhaps this was an ill advised move, to just get one more bottle, or half bottle as it were, after all the drinking which previously took place. A huge departure from the types of wines we had been drinking the rest of the night, this guy showed meaty, dark fruits, black olive, and loads of structure. One for food, not for closing out the wine geek night. Still, decent wine - we could have done worse.

A coupla' bistro French reds and Peruvian chicken

You know, I noticed that hardly anyone is blogging about cool, vin naturel on their wine blogs (I mean seriously, get off the Napa cabs and Russian River Valley Pinot Noir, wine bloggers). So, given the dearth of information on these hopelessly unfashionable, humble vin naturel, I thought I'd write up a few which a young upstart in the busniness named Joe Dressner imports. These are wines which I really enjoyed before and during dinner last night.

2007 Les vin contes Olivier Lemasson 'P'tit Rouquin' Gamay Touraine

French for 'carrot topped kid,' the p'tit rouqin is sourced from hand harvested gamay grown in clay and flint soils by several growers who farm organically within a 40 km radius in Touraine. Classical gamay vin naturel treatment here: no pigeage, carbonic maceration, only 2g/hectoliter sulphur added at bottling. And how does it taste? Delicious. Red cherries and goji berries on the noise, with a touch of earth, lead to a snappy red fruited and hibiscus inflected palate. There is a delicious minerality as well, one that at times stands out more than the understated fruit. This is definitely a mid to back palate and sides of the tongue wine. A chiseled, finishing wine. Streamlined, no baby fat, just perfect. Especially with roasted chicken and yuca (if you're in SF and have not yet done so, try Limon's on Van Ness btw 21st and 22nd). The Ptit Rouquin even held up to the spicy flavors of the various dipping sauces and a tangy cole slaw I made.

2006 Domaine de la Pepiere 'La Pepie' Cabernet Franc (1.5l)

This (and now that I mention it the wine above as well) were both opened the day before for a Loire tasting at the store. It's tasting much better than we first received the wine in a little over a year ago. Dark cherry fruit, showing a much more expansive and fleshed out mid-palate than when I had last tasted the wine. Some pretty cab franc floral notes towards the finish made it even tastier. Good, but not quite gamay good, with the chicken and yuca.