Carême “Spring” Vouvray
The Loire Valley in France offers languid riverside paths for walking and cycling, storybook castles for exploring and staying, forests for hunting deer and mushrooms, gravelly shoreline and hillside vineyards for wine grape growing, deep limestone caves for living, staying, and storing wine, plus lush fields for cultivating vegetables and raising livestock. Continue reading
West Coast wines made with Bordeaux based grapes
What’s your favorite red wine?
My dad loved mellow Merlot.
Many people choose Cabernet Sauvignon.
If I asked Sue, she might say Cabernet Franc.
What do these three grapes have in common?
While Thierry Puzelat may have stopped “going to church,” as he put it when we visited him, he never gave up on all of his biodynamic beliefs and the insights he gained by working his Loire vineyards at Clos du Tue-Boeuf. Instead, as a “mad scientist” might, he experiments and uses what works on the land his family has worked for centuries (literally since the 15th his family has been in wine!) Continue reading
Provence: land of lavender and rosé, located in the south of France next to the Italian Alps and beside the Mediterranean. Continue reading
semi-dry Bordeaux paired with savory, salty, and semi-sweet meal
Who doesn’t love kettle corn, that salty and sweet combination? If you like me are a fan, then consider this: semi-dry Bordeaux white wines paired with savory and salty fare! Continue reading
Two wines from the JURA, France
Four years ago almost to the day was the first time both my writing partner Sue and I had our first tastes Vin Jaune and Trousseau, from Jura, a mountainous region in Eastern France, near Italy and Switzerland.
In our naiveté, we thought they’d be like other red French wines. Sue researched and developed a menu of classic rich creamy and mushroomy dishes to pair with the split of Vin Jaune and the Trousseau. With six adults, and October being MerlotMe, we figured these dishes would work well with several expensive Napa merlot wines.
But surprise surprise: Continue reading
YuEn Gemma Kim, violinist, soars above and stays socially distant from my fish dishes paired with two wines from the northern Côtes du Rhône, France.
The Rhône River Valley in southeastern France is a BIG place: 165K acres of BIG, and about 150 miles from north to south. About 5% of this region is considered “northern Rhône” featuring Syrah and Viognier, and 95% is “Southern Rhône” featuring Grenache and an assortment of other red and white grapes including Mourvedre, Cinsault, Marsanne, and Rousanne (which I will be writing about next week). The smaller northern region has a more moderate continental climate with a focus on Syrah with fresh acidity; the southern is more mediteranean and warm and allows challenging grapes like Mourvede to ripen. Continue reading
wine predator.............. gwendolyn alley 