Wednesday, December 19, 2007

French Wine

No wine with dinner tonight, but last evening, we enjoyed a great $10 bottle of Cotes du Rhone. It's called 2005 La Cabotte Cotes du Rhone. Lovely! Easy to drink. Perfect for getting off work at 9:30 pm after an intense day of holiday madness. Had it with some Piave cheese and some pretzels.

The wine has a fresh aroma, cherries, all that good stuff, and on the palate, it is not heavy or overextracted, but full of flavor - both savory and fruit. I love that about a wine. I'm starting to hate extracted wines as much as I hate oak. When I bring home a Malbec from Argentina or a Cab from Chile, I typically find too much extraction, and then I can't really have a second glass. This La Cabotte is a great go-to wine that I would definitely buy again.

I told the French wine buyer that French wines are awesome and deliver at every price point. She told me thank you for the support, but actually, there are many crappy French wines. Interesting. Since I have worked where I do (The Wine Country), I have basically had only good French wines, or at least, good French reds. Apparently, not all French wines are great - some are supposedly thin and wicked.

Well, fantastic, we have nice ones. And for good prices too.

Tomorrow evening after work (not the late shift this time), husband and I are going out for dinner to a restaurant I love - we both love - a French-Swiss place that as I recall has a great wine list. I will be resisting bringing my own wine in favor of perusing their wine list and hopefully I will not be disappointed. During our past 2 meals there, we have been happy with their wine, first a red Bordeaux and then the second visit, when it was "Raclette Night," we had a nice white Swiss wine. Neufchatel I think it was called.

I'm typically very fearful of ordering wine from a wine list as it usually doesn't do it for me. My least favorite is a very California wine-rich wine list, especially at a wine bar. My least favorite wines have been from these places.

I'll report on the wonderful meal and wine I have tomorrow evening!

1 comment:

Rocket French said...

Thank you for sharing your French wine experience. I would suggest you taste Château d'Yquem. Excellent !