Grapes

85% Grenache, 15% Syrah

Facts

• You’ve probably read countless times that “…you should never choose a wine based on the label!” Well, I call BS on that! If anything, France needs to step-up their wine label game (as is beautifully demonstrated here) and start getting more creative if they plan on rising from the ashes!
  To me, a great label and overall good packaging are sometimes the only way a producer is going to get recognized. I have no problem point out that the label was the main reason I picked up this bottle.
   
• The importer details on a wine label are most-often ignored by consumers, and for good reason! They’re boring! However, once you start recognizing a few of the big names, I won’t go so far as to say a trusted importer is a guarantee that you’ll personally enjoy a wine, but it’s a very good indicator of quality!

• When dealing with European wine importers, there’s three that I’d like to throw your way as they’ve never let me down: Kermit Lynch, Jorge Ordonez, and Eric Solomon -which the Cercius is part of. Just look for their information of the back label.

• Grenache is a key component to the reds from the Cotes du Rhone region of France, usually blended with Syrah for wines such as Chateauneuf-du-Pape, Cotes du Ventoux, Cotes du Rhone Villages and Gigondas.

• The grapes that comprise the blend for the Cercius was put together by the importer himself (Eric Solomon), with a little help from renowned oenologist Philippe Cambie and venerable French winemaker Michel Gassier.

• 93 points from Robert Parker on the 2010 vintage. The ‘09 received a 91. Try and top that for under $20 a bottle!

Place (click map for larger view)

• Soil is boring, except when you can actually taste the influence it’s had on a wine!
  The soil around this region is littered with stones referred to as ‘galets.’ It’s these stones that help to retain the heat of the day and radiate it to the vines during the night. Think of it like a Snuggie for vines.
   
• Wind is EVEN MORE boring than soil, until you find out that the name Cercius comes from the Latin translation of the mistral winds that sweep
  through the vineyards in this region.

• These cooling breezes actually help the winemakers to tame the Mediterranean climate, by ensuring that the ripeness on the the Grenache grapes doesn’t get out of control.

• The vineyards used for the Cercius are located at the southern edge of the Rhone Valley near Costieres de Nimes.

Taste

Ripe and intense, the Circius shows cassis, currant and black cherries, laced with cracked black pepper, slate, anise, dried orange peel and garrigue. A surprisingly long finish, with balance and acidity. Potential for another few years in the cellar. Impressive juice!

Pairing

Pair as you would with a Chateauneuf-du-Pape or Gigondas i.e. game, lamb shank, steak on the grill, mushrooms, truffle roasted/braised meats, duck, stew/casserole, black pudding, hearty red-sauce pasta and beef in just about every form.

Price

$17 – If you see a bottle, make sure to grab it! Only 5,000 cases were imported and it certainly won’t last long at this price.

Paris auction firm Artcurial Briest–Poulain–F.Tajan has been selected to sell-off Champagne bottles that have spent the last 170 years in a shipwreck at the bottom of the Baltic sea.

The shipwreck and its cargo are the property of the Åland Islands (NB: don’t worry, I had to Google them as well). The origin and name of the schooner remains a mystery, although the Åland government is carrying out extensive research in order to piece together its final voyage.

Whereas a number of the bottles are being kept for museum purposes, the rest will be auctioned off over the next few years, with all proceeds going towards Baltic marine conservation.

162 bottles in total (79 of them still drinkable) were removed from the shipwreck, found on the seabed between Finland and Sweden, in 2010. During restoration, the corks revealed the champagne to have been produced by three different houses: Juglar (now defunct), Veuve-Clicquot and Heidsieck.

Of the 11 bottles to be offered for auction this June, 6 come from Juglar, a firm which disappeared in 1829; 4 from Veuve-Clicquot; and one from Heidsieck. Expert analysis suggests they date from 1841-50. Wine experts at the auction house have assigned an estimate of €10,000 (around $12,800) to each of these incredibly rare bottles.

Now I know what you’re thinking: “Why would anyone want to spend that amount of money on wine that probably (by now) tastes like witch-piss!?!?”

Well, due to the constant pressure, darkness and temperature on the sea-bed, the Champagne has reportedly retained exceptional its original characteristics extremely well! As world-renowned champagne expert Richard Juhlin states: “…the bottles prove that champagne possesses an undeniable ability to age perfectly. No other wine could have survived in such conditions and developed such aromas. I have come across champagnes which tasted fresher or more elegant, but here the aromatic intensity is quite superb – the most powerful I have ever tasted, and incredibly long in the mouth.”

Is an ability to taste wine come from our DNA? A  new study has concluded that certain individuals are born with a heightened sensitivity that gives them the edge when it comes to tasting wine.

“Wine Expertise Predicts Taste Phenotype,” by Profs. John Hayes and Gary Pickering separated over 300 participants into two groups—”wine experts,” (professionals in the wine industry), and regular consumers—and gave them a paper disk treated with drops of the chemical 6-n-propylrhioueacil (PROP). They were then asked to taste it.

Some people find PROP tasteless, and others mildly or extremely bitter. The Professors wrote that PROP testing “…has been widely adopted as a marker of genetic variation in taste” and that some recent studies showed “…those who experience PROP as being intensely bitter not only experience heightened overall oral sensation, but also may be more acute tasters, with the ability to discriminate smaller differences between oral stimuli.”

Hayes and Pickering conclude that the differences in PROP sensitivities between wine experts and non-experts “may suggest a possible discordance in judgments of quality and value between the two groups”—that wine experts have a naturally different sense of taste than the consumers they serve. Because of this, “wine consumers may wish to apply additional caution in adopting wine expert endorsements,” the authors wrote.

François Chartier, author of Taste Buds and Molecules: The Art and Science of Food, Wine and Flavor thinks the study is a load of old bollocks (my words, not his): “…this only means that some [experts] are potential supertasters of PROP, nothing more. Everyone has a nose and a tongue. If you work hard on aroma recognition and on taste, you will become a good taster,” he said.

Click here to read the abstract from the study.

My Thoughts…

Yeah, I’m not exactly on-board with this study. I don’t think I’m the best wine taster in the world, but I’m probably “better” (however you want to define that) than 99% of the general public. This has only come through experience.

A scientist I am not, but I do agree that people are sometimes born with varying degrees of taste perception. I would also say that anyone can be taught to become a better wine taster. Some people are great tasters, but have a problem putting their thoughts into words. Some people are mediocre tasters, but BS through a wine tasting to make others believe their palate is superior.

Thinking about taking wine on a plane? Here’s a few things to consider…

BTG (or wine By-The-Glass) can be a great way to sample a few different wines in a restaurant or wine bar without committing to the whole bottle. I would like to state, though, there are a number of pitfalls, namely;…

The Selection Usually Sucks.

I’m mentioning this first, as I think it’s the biggest problem! A solid wine by-the-glass list is hard to come by, for a number of reasons:

• I don’t know of a single corporately-branded restaurant that hasn’t sold their soul to at least one wine distributor / wine brand.
  This can happen to different extents, with the outcome being the BTG selection features only “the usual suspects” i.e. big wine brands.

• Restaurants usually stay fairly generic with the wines available by the glass. With anything too eclectic, there’s a chance the wines won’t sell and will inevitably be wasted.

My Advice: It’s very rare that I order by-the-glass in restaurants, with my reasoning being (as the heading states): the selection usually sucks.
It’s often suggested that dining at small locally-owned restaurants will overcome the problem of wine lists that are essentially “owned” by a particular wine distributor. This couldn’t be further from the truth and if anything it’s just as likely that they are receiving “sweetened” wine deals from the big boy distributors.
Depending on the State you live in (for legal reasons), I would recommend just buying a whole bottle, pouring your two glasses, corking it and taking the rest home with you.

Restaurants Rape You on Mark-up

The old wine industry saying goes that: “the glass pays for the bottle” i.e. the price you’re paying for the glass is usually the wholesale price of the bottle.

Some people have a tendency to go ape-sh*t when they see that a restaurant is charging only a few $’s less than what they can buy a bottle of for from a grocery store.
If you’re one of these people, I would suggest you stay home and drink your grocery store wine. It’s usually the same people that are quite happy to pay $2 for a Coke that contains 10¢ of post-mix, while they wear their $80 khakis that cost $4 to make in Indonesia. Weird!

My Advice: I’ve started bringing my own wine to a lot more restaurants and quite happily pay the corkage fee. If that’s the route you want to take, a few things to bear in mind:
- If the bottle cost under $20 (retail), don’t even bother. Of course this is a free country and you’re more than able to take a bottle of $7 Australian Pinot Grigio to enjoy with your meal at a high-end steak house. Just know that everyone is judging you!
- Make sure you’re not bringing a bottle that isn’t already on the wine list. That would be referred to as a “dick move”.
- Offer the Sommelier/Server a glass. It’s just good etiquette.

Open Wine Dies Quickly

I tend to find that New World wines will typically last longer than Old World wines. Of course, that’s a very general assessment and I’m not going to get into my rationale right here. I’ll save that for another article!

As stated previously, I love restaurants with a large BTG list!  It enables you to taste through a number of different wines without having to commit to the whole bottle; however, the larger the wine list, the greater the waste.

Restaurants that can afford them use a wine preservation system (in some form), but the vast majority do not. 2-3 days is usually the maximum time you’ll get out of an opened bottle before you’ll start seeing any detrition.

My Advice: Your own wine education helps i.e. you need to know what a “bad” wine smells like. With that being said, I’ve sent wine back in a restaurant before, only to be told: ‘”…it can’t be bad! We just opened it 10 minutes ago!” You can only imagine how much I like to receive a tableside wine education by a snotty-little 19 year old! :)

If you really just want to play it safe (and I know it sucks to have to do this) order something that isn’t too “off the beaten path” i.e. something that you can safely presume the restaurant is moving through a good of i.e. Napa Cabernet, Sonoma Chardonnay etc. The Agiorghitiko from Greece can wait for another time…

Standard Pour Sizes Vary

From what I’ve seen, 6 ounces seems to be the standard size pour for wine, but a number of restaurants try to get away with less. Depending on the size the wine glass, it isn’t always easy to tell what you’re receiving.

My Advice: Tough one. Of course you could always ask upfront the size of the wine pour, but I personally wouldn’t. I think it’s tacky.
I suggest just ordering a glass and if you’re not happy with the pour just send it back (without first obviously drinking from it).

My first ever infographic! Not too bad for a first attempt…

“What’s with all the recipes you’ve been making with peas? You know I hate peas!” said Mrs Chislett.

This was news to me. Or maybe not! Maybe it’s just been that long since I actually used peas in cooking, that it completely slipped my mind!
Peas always remind me of school dinners, with the only reason that I find myself using them again here is I had a bag leftover from the last pairing and I knew I wasn’t going to use them any time soon.

If you’re cooking for a family, this recipe will quite easily feed everyone. However, if you’re only cooking for 1-2 people (as I was), be prepared for leftovers!

Tarragon (photo on the right, closest to the camera) rarely makes an appearance in any of my recipes, but without it this dish would have been left lacking that extra “something”.
Tarragon shows an almost licorice and anise-type quality and is certainly used a lot more in European cuisine than it is here. Once again, take the extra step of using fresh tarragon, as dried tarragon doesn’t yield half of the flavor/aromatics.

Make sure when you make this recipe that once you’ve brown-off the chicken in the pan, just remove it and then add the leeks. My original “inspiration” for this recipe suggested using separate pans for each. That makes no sense, for two very good reasons: 1. extra dishes and 2. you’re losing all that chicken flavor from the bottom of the pan.

It was a complete last-minute decision to pair-up three different Chardonnays, with my thoughts being to totally overwhelm my wife with wine so she won’t even notice or care about the peas!
I tasted her blind on all three of these wines. I didn’t taste blind myself, as it would have been waste of time (as I already knew the flavor profile of each wine).

Miolo Reserva Chardonnay, Brazil.

My first ever wine from Brazil (that I can remember at least)!
This bottle was sent to me by someone I met on Twitter a little over a year ago. Since it was sent to me by a friend (and not a PR company) I therefore had my fingers (and toes) very firmly crossed that it wasn’t going to taste like total garbage, thus forcing the following conversation to no doubt ensue:
“@Krischislett How was the wine I sent? Did it taste good?”
“@Marilise* Nope! It tasted like a blend of cat piss and pickle juice!!! Please don’t send me wine ever again!!!”

Awkward.

Luckily, the Miolo Reserva Chardonnay was easily the most surprisingly of the bunch, mainly because my expectations were so low from the beginning! The winery tasting notes state, and I quote: “Good color intensity with tones ranging from greenish-yellow to gold. Pronounced intensity harmonizing well the aromas of fruit and wood. This Chardonnay has a good volume in the palate with balanced acidity and pleasant aftertaste.”

Yup, I think those “tasting notes” firmly describe about 90% of Chardonnays on this planet!

Here’s what I thought:
The lightest in body of the Chardonnay trio, the Miolo spends most of its time in stainless steel tanks, therefore preserving the crisp Granny Smith apple and pear aromatics. Green herbs, minerality present throughout, lime zest, toasty oak and a hint of butterscotch toward the back-end. Medium-short finish. Sauvignon Blanc-type acidity and crispness.

Cheers for the wine Marilise! :)

Waterbrook Chardonnay, Washington State.

I’ve featured the Waterbrook Chardonnay in a previous review, so click here for that video as I don’t really want to regurgitate the tasting notes here again.
What I will say is that the Waterbrook is the wine my wife chose as being the best pairing with this particular dish. I agreed.
The one component I really liked was that the wine really picked up on the tarragon in the dish, which I didn’t really expect.
I’ve reviewed three of the Waterbrook wines recently and they’re easily some of the best values coming out of Washington State right now!

Mer Soleil, Santa Lucia Highlands, California.

Butter and cream all-the-way! I had expected the Mer Soleil Chardonnay to fair a little better than it did here. No doubt it’s a well-made wine, but it just threw the dish off balance and didn’t really pair particularly well with any one ingredient. Maybe another time…

I encourage you to spontaneously try something like this in your own home! It’s great fun and if you do in-fact do the whole tasting blind (with numbered bottles and glasses) it will totally change your perception of how wines pair with a meal!

Recipe for White Balsamic-Braised Chicken with Leeks and Peas.

Serves: 4-5
Prep Time: 30 mins
Cooking Time: 45 mins

INGREDIENTS

1. 4 whole chicken thighs
2. Kosher salt
3. Freshly ground black pepper
4. 4 tablespoons unsalted butter
5. 1 cup crème fraîche 
6. One 10-ounce package frozen baby peas
7. 1/2 cup white balsamic vinegar
8. 4 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil
9. 2 large leeks, halved lengthwise and cut into 1-inch pieces
10. 2 cups chicken broth
11. 4 tablespoons chopped tarragon
12. 4 tablespoons chopped parsley

DIRECTIONS

1. Preheat the oven to 400°. Set chicken on a chopping board and cut into 2 pieces, separating the leg from the thigh.

2. In a large pan/skillet, heat the butter and oil. Add the chicken, skin side up, and cook over high heat until lightly browned. Turn-over the chicken and cook for 1 minute longer. Remove chicken from the pan and place on a plate.

3. Add the leeks to the pan (where you just had you chicken) over high heat until just beginning to soften, about 2-3 mins. Pour in the broth and vinegar and bring to a boil. Season with salt and pepper, stir and then pour the mix into a medium roasting pan.

4. Set the chicken on top of the leeks, skin side up and roast for about 25 minutes. Turn on the broiler and broil for about 2 minutes (if necessary), until the skin is golden and crisp.

5. Remove the chicken pieces with tongs to a separate plate. Place the roasting pan over a burner and boil over high heat until the liquid is reduced by around half (not much longer than 5 minutes). Stir-in the peas, herbs and crème fraîche and then simmer until the sauce is hot and slightly thickened, about 2 minutes. Season with salt and pepper.
   Pour the sauce over the chicken and serve.

*Full twitter name hidden.