french wine a day

Recipes

Jean-Marc's Turkey :

For 6 - 8 Persons :

6 pounds turkey with liver
One pound of Ground veal
Shallots
Garlic
Bread crumbs
4 eggs
1/2 pound of uncooked ham
Regular cognac
Canned chestnuts
Dried  mushrooms
Salt and pepper
1/6 gallon of milk

Mix all ingredients together exempt cognac and dried mushrooms. Boil the dried mushrooms with water for about 1/2 hour while you mix the stuffing.

When you have a compact and mixed stuffing, add the mushrooms (not the water), a wine glass of regular cognac and stuff the turkey. You should then have some leftover that you want to put all around the turkey. Put it in heaven at 400° F for about 4 hours and after 2 hours, wet the turkey with the liquid fat.

And don't forget to drink a great french wine with it !

Cheers !

Vendanges

My daughter Jackie having fun harvesting last year at Domaine du Banneret

Dear wine lovers,

Here we go for another season of "vendanges*" in France. Beaujolais usually starts first at the end of August in producing the famous "Beaujolais Nouveau" with the light Gamay grape and they should be over in December with the ice wine (yes, there is a very little French production in Alsace).

Some of you have told me about your dream of going harvesting some day and some are actually about to fly to France for that. Today, here are a few things you might want to know when you go harvesting.

At this point, all the talks I hear from vineyards announce high sugar contents and issues with natural acidity. We had another very dry summer and maturity is in moving along. In any case, until the grapes are in the tank, any prediction is pure fantasy.

In fact, you should know that 90% of the quality is already determined when the grapes are harvested. The rest is techniques to try to enhance this quality or not to deteriorate it. For that, the most important is to harvest at the right time. And this is a real challenge because when the grapes are about to be 100% ready, there might be rain which might then spoil the quality by diluting flavors, delaying the picking date which will alter sugar and acidity content and maybe ruin the quality in itself with rotten grapes.

This weather interaction is even more problematical since, at about harvest time, the two major components of berries, which are acidity and sugar, evolve very rapidly (Download acidity_sugar.jpg - a very rough graph to show you how sugar and acidity evolve in time).

The problem is that there are rotten grapes that have this famous noble rot and these are great. When you don't know, a tip is to smell the grape. If it smells vinegar, just drop it to the ground. If it has a smell of currant raisins, you are more welcome to keep it.

So when the time has come in being in the vines cutting. Sorting out the bad grape is very important, during the cutting as well as they reach the sorting table in the cellars. They are then destemed or not (depending on the level of tannins looked for) and put in the tank after a little crushing** which will release the juice from the skin. See the picture and a very short video that will show two very traditional way to crush grapes (Download Foulage.jpg and Download foulage_in_corsica.wmv)

Of course, what I am telling you concerns the old.fashioned way to harvest in France. But it is always a memorable time and we all are now looking for the next to come. I will tell you all about this in a few weeks...if mother nature allows us to have fun !

Cheers,

Jean-Marc Espinasse

Any comments, edits are very welcome at [email protected]

*Listen to "Vendange" : Download Vendanges.mp3

**Crushing = Foulage

Label

Dear wine lovers,

A lot of people have asked me to explain to them how to read a French wine "étiquette"* (Download label_example.jpg).

Well...it is not that easy and maybe one of the reasons French wines have this image of being too complicated to understand.

The truth is that our Controlled Origin Appellation (AOC) relies on terroir more and excludes mentionning grape varieties. Besides all the different AOC which have their own grape varieties that you will hopefully understand better reading french wine a day, what you really want to care about is the difference between two important things :

1 : The quality of the wines in an area supposedly given by AOC for the best, VDP ("Vin de Pays") for wines that don't fit with AOC requirements and VDT (Vin de Table) for the ones that don't fit with AOC and VDP. Not to complicate things, but there are a few exceptions that confirm the rule with some VDP that are much better than some AOC in the same area. Most of the time, these wines are VDP just because they did not want to conform to the local standards with grape varieties.

2 : The wine owner. When the label says "Château" or "Domaine", it is most of the time a private Estate which means that the vines are owned and that the wine is coming from these vines. Then you have the "Coopérative" or "Cellier" (Download syrah04.jpg) which is a gathering of many small vine owners** that have a common place for the wine making. Most of the time, that means lots of volume and an average quality but once again there are exceptions...  For both Châteaux and Coops, the wine is mostly bottled at the Estate, which is a quality factor. At last, there are negociants that buy wine in bulk and sell it with a brand name like "Fortant de France". This usually means no volume limit and no way to know where the wine is coming from.

These two steps will permit you to select wines from a qualitative perspective. Also, don't forget to read the back label (Download vidal_ce_martines_wines.pdf) where lots of information is given. Reading in between lines, you will be able to distinguish authentic messages form the pure marketing which might also help you in your decision.

And a last but easy tip : To improve your knowledge in understanding labels, do the same as for when you drink a wine and try to associate flavors to a region. Reading carefully a wine label is a kind of mental gymnastic which eventually will permit you to be more at ease when you have to select a French wine in a store.

Cheers,

Jean-Marc Espinasse

Any comments, edits are very welcome at [email protected]

*Listen to "étiquette" :  Download Etiquette.mp3

**Owner = Propriétaire

Bouchons

Dear wine lovers,

You may ask yourself just why, for a while now, synthetic corks ("bouchons*") have replaced most of the natural corks in bottled wine.

In fact, there are many reasons :

The most obvious reason of all is the elimination of the taste that cork can bring to wine ["cork taint"] which is so frustrating, particularly when the bottle is a special one.

Another explanation comes from the fact that world production of cork is limited, especially these last few years, as Portugal, which is the leading producer, has been ravaged by fires that have destroyed a great part of these cork oak trees**.

At the same time, world production of wines has not ceased to grow with the arrival of wines from the new world (North America, Chile, Australia, South Africa). So it was necessary to find other solutions for sealing bottles of wine.

But the main reason comes from the actual utility of the cork. Originally, it permitted not only closure of the bottle but also for the wine to be in slight contact with the air, and therefore age slowly and in the best conditions. It should be noted that in the past (up until the 80's), wines were made the hard way and it was necessary to wait a few years before being able to drink and appreciate them at their true value. The natural cork, therefore, had its usefulness.

Today, wine consumption habits have greatly changed. We buy wine at 7 PM and drink it at 7:30 PM If that's not such a typical scenario, then one should simply note that wines are quickly consumed. And for this, they must be made in such a way that enables them to be appreciated young. These wines are less concentrated, more fragile regarding oxidation and won't get better with aging. A plastic cork, which is almost completely hermetic, permits these wines to keep their freshness and fruity taste and will also better protect them from oxidation which might degrade them. Of course, this reasoning is not to be used for great wines (ones which should be aged) which continue to be sealed with real cork.

At last, the plastic cork enables marketing, an element that has become so important in commercial aspects, to express itself, notably by the range of colors and by a personal logo which is easier to create on the plastic cork.

Now, if you have plastic-corked bottles hanging around your cellar, you can, without scruples, go and grab one and drink it to my health.

Cheers,

Jean-Marc Espinasse

"PS tip" : Sometimes it is not easy to know if a wine is corked. If you have a doubt, pour a little amount in a glass and add the same amount of water in the same glass. If the wine is corked, the cork "flavor" will explode. If it is not corked, this scent will disappear and you will want to aerate the wine in a carafe for a while before drinking it.

Any comments, edits are very welcome at [email protected]

*Listen to "Bouchon" : Download Bouchon.wav

**trees = arbres

To go further on synthetic corks, you can visit http://www.supremecorq.com/faq/taint.htm

Apogée

Dear wine lovers,

One of the most frequent questions I am asked when I talk about wine is :

When do I know when my wine reaches maturity ?

Well, since wine is often an unpredictable subject (and hopefully it will remain as the last thing we want is to drink an industrial and regular "product"), the answer is not easy...

The big picture answer is : The quicker the wine reaches its "apogée"*, the quicker it will decline. An easy example is with a Beaujolais Nouveau that is at its best in November and almost dead in June. On the other hand, a 1961 Bordeaux which is mature now will remain beautiful another 20 years and start declining after.

If you want to know at which stage a wine of your cellar is, open a bottle, drink 90% of it in a laps of two hours and try to see how it evolves during this time.

Then, do not protect it from oxidation and retry it the next day.

- If it has improved in the first two hours and even got better the next day, let it sleep at least another 5 years and try it then.

- If it has improved in the first two hours and declined the next day, drink it in the next 10 years with other tries in order to know how it actually evolves.

- If it declines within the first two hours, drink it quick.

Of course and as I said earlier, wine can be unpredictable. It has phases when it opens up and closes down. Some traditionalist winemakers** will also tell you not to taste a wine at its anniversary since it has the memory of harvest and that it gets a little crazy at this time period.

Cheers,

Jean-Marc Espinasse

Any comments, edits are very welcome at [email protected]

*Listen to "Apogée" : Download Apogee.wav

Listen to the french translation of this column

**Winemakers = Maîtres de chais

Wine glossary

AOC : "Appellation d'Origine Contrôlée". Certifies you that a wine is coming from a defined area know for its "terroir". Besides the need to have the vines planted in a delimited area, the vineyard must respect grape typicity, not overcome certain yields and submit the wines to a tasting every vintage, this to insure quality.

Full-bodied : Positive expression used to describe a wine that fills your mouth. Some people also use "fat" to explain this nice weight sensation.

Grand Cru : In the Champagne region, this means that the grapes can be sold at 100% of the market price, 1er Cru being from 90 to 99% of this price and the rest from 80 and 89%.

Late harvest : Indicates that grapes that are picked as late as possible in the season for maximum sugar content. Sometimes, the grapes will develop a noble rot thanks to botrytis cinerea mushroom which will not damage the quality of the grape while it looses water and gains sugars.

Tannins : A natural component of the wine coming from the skins, seeds and stems of grapes. Most prominent in red wines where it creates a dry and puckering sensation which can dry your mouth. With aging, they form sediments.

Terroir : French term with no translation to describe the characteristics of a defined area. That includes soil, underground, exposure, climate and local traditions.

Yield : A way to measure the volume of wine produced by "hectares" = 2,5 acres. This amount always has to be in perspective, depending on the number of vines planted which can be very different because of exposition and soil dryness. And on similar vine parcel conditions, the lower the yield, the better the quality.