A Red Bordeaux at Christmas - Troplong Mondot 1998

A while ago, after a couple of years' very good results, my boss presented me with a rather special bottle of Bordeaux - a magnum of Troplong Mondot 1998, no less.

Troplong Mondot is a St Emilion Grand Cru Classe, meaning it is officially one of the top properties on the right bank of the Gironde in Bordeaux where the dominant grape variety is Merlot. Unofficially, it is considered one of the best chateaux in St Emilion with 1998 being one of the best recent vintages.

So, this was a little way above my usual "everyday" drinking and I wanted to be sure to appreciate the wine fully.

Usually, I buy new wines in pairs at least; with the first bottle you learn how the wine develops once opened so that you can serve the second bottle at the ideal temperature and with the right amount of airing, be it straight from the bottle or after several hours in a decanter. With a half-case, or even a full case, you can also see how the wine develops in bottle over the weeks and months between the first and the last tasting.

I once had a couple of cases of Austrian Weissburgunder (Pinot blanc) which matured beautifully from a crisp, apples-and-pears aperitif to something much richer and rounded over the 18 months or so that it took to drink it all.

Sadly, my boss's generosity "only" ran to a single magnum of the St Emilion, but I figured that we could decant half for one meal, then stopper the bottle and finish it off the next day and hopefully at some point during that time, it would reach a peak. So, here are my tasting notes from the 36-hour period during which the wine was consumed and some afterthoughts:

Immediately on opening:

Wonderful nose of cassis and vanilla, smells richer and "bigger" than a more basic Bordeaux; colour still quite dark for a wine of this age; however, first impressions on the palate are disappointing, all acidity and tannic grip with little evidence of any fruit.

With the meal after two hours in the decanter:

Starting to open up now, more balanced with some fruit on the palate, lovely texture but feels a little overwhelmed by the food (free-range slow-roast chicken plus trimmings)

With dinner the following evening:

Keep the food simple this time - roast beef and Yorkshire puddings; wine much improved, has really opened up and feels much more balanced, still has that wonderful cassis and vanilla on the nose, same on the palate with added hints of pencil shavings and mint, good fruit, but not as fruit-driven as a younger wine would be, exceptionally smooth with wonderful texture, continues to improve during the meal and, sadly, seems to reach a peak just as we finish it off.

Afterthoughts:

Before trying this wine, I wondered what it would be like, how it would be different from a €10 Bordeaux - and if I would be able to tell !

Having drunk quite a lot of Bordeaux in general and right-bank Bordeaux in particular, I found it quite familiar on the nose and palate; it did not taste fundamentally different from a ordinary Bordeaux. The most noticeable difference was that the fruit on the palate was not as prominent as with a younger wine.

However, where the wine really showed its superiority was in the texture, the mouth-feel. It's very difficult to describe, but rather like looking at the original of a great painting after having seen only a reproduction in a book - it's all there, all the same, but somehow better, more complex, more textured, more detailed.

It may be just my imagination, but also since trying the Troplong-Mondot, the more everyday reds I have been drinking seem a bit thin and two-dimensional - rather like returning to the family runaround after a lift in your rich uncle's posh German saloon.

****

Troplong-Mondot 1998 is available in the UK - not cheaply, though. One site I found it on suggests it is ready for drinking any time between now and 2017, and that seems entirely possible given how it developed after opening. Magnums generally age more slowly than single bottles (same air gap below the cork, double the amount of wine), so even at 11 years, this one may have been a little young.

We had some other excellent drinks over Christmas including a sweet sherry that tasted like Christmas pudding in a bottle and a very smooth Ukrainian brandy. Appropriately enough, after all that indulgence, my next wine tasting has a "credit crunch" theme.

Links

Chateau Troplong-Mondot - www.troplong-mondot.com/

Wine searcher - www.wine-searcher.com/

International Wine Challenge - blind tasting of trophy winners by Cambridge Food and Wine Society

Wine competitions have had something of a bad press in the last few years with the perception that they are little more than a profile-raising, money making exercise in which the only loser is the consumer. The "anti-competition" argument goes something like this: cynical competition organisers hand out too many medals to undeserving wines simply to encourage more entrants and increase their income from entry fees. The wine-makers benefit as they get to put a medal sticker on their wines and maybe get a little extra shelf-space from the supermarket and the poor consumer is duped into thinking an overpriced ordinary wine is something special.

I think this is a journalistic distortion, or at least selective exaggeration, of the underlying truth; for sure, medals help a wine stand out on a supermarket shelf but the International Wine Challenge has, for example, amongst its judges, 370 winemakers, merchants and writers from around the world, including an number of Masters of Wine, and a rigorous, multi-stage judging process. You may not agree with what the judges consider to be a good, excellent or even best-in-class wine, but a medal is no guarantee that you will actually like a wine, only that it is a good-to-excellent example of that type of wine.

This year, 45,000 wines were entered into the International Wine Challenge and only a select few won one or more trophies. The blind tasting at the Cambridge Food and Wine Society included a sample of the trophy-winners, including the Champion Red Wine, Runner-Up Red Wine and (a popular one on the night) the Great Value Champion Sweet Wine.

There were also the usual few curve-balls, such as the Greek White Trophy wine and the International Viognier Trophy wine.

As usual, the tasting was done blind, with Society members invited to hazard a guess at the country of origin, main grape variety, vintage, alcohol content and price. This made for plenty of discussion and some surprising results. It is worth pointing out that the highest score achieved on the night was a shade over 50%, so there is clearly no GCSE-type dumbing down here !

Most of the wines are available at local independent wine merchants such as Noel Young (who garnered a couple of merchant accolades himself) and Cambridge Wine Merchants, whilst others are more generally available at Waitrose, Tesco, M&S and Majestic.

With, apparently, 40% of all wine being bought between September and Christmas, the list below would make a good Christmas shopping list if you are looking for something special for the festive season.

The Wines

Tim Adams Riesling, 2008 (Australia, £8.99, Tes, 3 trophies)
Domaine de Bel Air, 2008 (Pouilly Fume, £13.99, CWM, NY, trophy)
Laurent Miquel Verite Viognier, 2007 (Languedoc-Rousillon, £13.99, Wai, 2 trophies)
Ktima Biblia Chora Ovilis White, 2008 (Greece, £17.50, NY, trophy)
Vinedos Emiliana Carmenere / Cabernet Sauvignon, 2007 (Chile, £7.99, NY 2 trophies)
Bodegas y Vinedos Pascal Toso Malbec, 2008 (Argentina, NY, £7.99, 5 trophies)
Guardian Peak, Lapa Cabernet Sauvignon, 2007 (South Africa, NY, £16.95, 4 trophies)
Chateau Caronne Ste Gemme, 2004 (Haut Medoc, Maj £12.99, trophy)
Matetiq EQ Syrah, 2007 (Chile, Maj, NY, £18.49, 3 trophies)
Weingut Darting Scheurebe, 2005 (Germany, M&S, £14.99 trophy)

Abbreviations

CWM - Cambridge Wine Merchants
Maj - Majestic
M&S - Marks and Spencer
NY - Noel Young Wines
Tes - Tesco

Links

Cambridge Wine Merchants - http://www.cambridgewine.com/

Noel Young Wines - http://www.nywines.co.uk/

International Wine Challenge - http://www.internationalwinechallenge.com/

In search of Terroir: Chile's Vina Undurraga

Terroir is a uniquely French concept, meaning the combination of soil, altitude, aspect, rainfall and just about eveything which makes the local climate suitable or otherwise for growing vines. Indeed, the whole French system of wine classification is based on the concept of terroir - Pauillac and the Côte d'Or are places, not grape varieties.

The New World, by contrast, tends to focus as much, if not more, on grape variety and for that reason, one tends to speak of Aussie Shiraz or Chilean Sauvignon Blanc. However, it was only a matter of time before more forward-thinking winemakers from the New World began to look more closely at the area where the grapes are grown and start to delineate growing areas more precisely, identifying those which produce better wines.

Such a man is Rafael Urrejola, chief winemaker of Chile's Vina Undurraga; the winery was founded in 1885 but has only recently started to focus on the concept of terroir under Rafael's leadership with his "Terroir Hunter" project.

Rafael presented his wines at the newly-established St John's Chop House on Northampton Street in central Cambridge and the event was organised by Cambridge Wine Merchants.

With just one exception, all the wines Rafael presented were from his Terroir Hunter series and what became clear over the tasting is that there are indeed distinct characteristics discernible in the wines from the different terroirs - or micro-terroirs, as each wine was from an area of fewer than 5 hectares. To put it crudely, the wines from Leyda tend to have more fruit on the nose, but are more delicate on the palate, whilst the Casablanca wines are somewhat muted on the nose but richer and stronger on the palate.

Chile is a long, thin strip of a country snaking down the western side of South America - not much over 100 miles wide, its geography is complex, but in simple terms it has the Andes to the west, the Antarctic to the south, the Pacific Ocean to the east (with its cooling breezes) and finally the Atacama desert to the north. Add into this differing soil types washed down the valleys of the Andes, and a lower-lying coastal mountain range giving some shelter from the cooling sea breezes and the variety of terroirs and micro-terroirs is immense.

All the wines were relatively young, mostly from 2008, and all were in screw-cap bottles and were poured without decanting; as a result, many developed significantly in the glass and first impressions needed revisiting after a few minutes airing and swirling.

We started with the Brut Royal, a sparkling wine fermented in tank, rather than using the traditional (and more expensive) Champagne method of secondary fermentation in bottle. It was fruity, refreshing and well-balanced.

Next up was a trio of Sauvignon Blancs from Casablanca, Leyda and Abarca respectively. The first was the most typically "Chilean" of the three, with lots of zesty, ripe tropical fruit, whilst the Leyda Sauvignon had a very herbaceous nose and the Abarca tasted as if it had been barrel fermented, having a muted nose but a generous, minerally mouth-feel on the palate. Rafael explained that the style of the wine is due not to barrel fermentation, but to the effect of cooling breezes from the Pacific, so the grapes ripen more slowly and do not achieve quite the same level of ripeness as they would in warmer climates.

The last of the whites was an oaked Chardonnay from Limari - initially, this was very oaky tasting of buttered crumpets and mixed spice matched with good acidity, but after opening up it became a much more balanced and complex wine. The "Burgundian" section of the tasting continued with two Pinot Noirs which, again, highlighted the differences between Leyda and Casablanca; the first having a typical Pinot nose with cherries and a distinct vegetal or farmyard note, whilst the second was fuller, with more complexity on the palate.

Finally, there were two Syrahs - one from Limari and the other from Maipo. Both wines had lots of fruit, hints of spicy white pepper and a very smooth texture, and again the Limari, being from a cooler climate, was lighter with more red fruit on the nose. By contrast the Maipo was richer and fuller with black fruits; it was for me, the most enjoyable wine of the evening and has even earned a nod from Oz Clarke.

The Wines (all available from Cambridge Wine Merchants)

Undurraga Brut Royal NV (£8.99)
TH Sauvignon Blanc Casablanca 2008 (£10.99)
TH Sauvignon Blanc Leyda 2007 (£8.99)
TH Sauvignon Blanc Abarca 2008 (£10.99)
2008 Decanter International Trophy Winner
TH Chardonnay Limari 2008 (£12.99)
TH Pinot Noir Leyda 2008 (£12.99)
TH Pinot Noir Casablanca 2008 (£13.99)
TH Syrah Limari 2007 (£12.99)
TH Syrah Maipo 2006 (£9.99)
Best 250 wines by Oz Clarke

Links
Undurraga - http://www.undurraga.cl/
Cambridge Wine Merchants - http://www.cambridgewine.com/
St John's Chop House - http://www.chophouses.co.uk/StJohnsChopHouse/index.html

Wine-buying in France; Calais

Does the Pas-de-Calais region actually produce any wine? I doubt it. However, it is still a very good part of France in which to buy wine for the simple reason that it full of hypermarkets and can be done as a day trip from Cambridge.

Calais is a pretty soulless place at the best of times - flat, bleak, mostly destroyed during the war, it is a working port with the refugee centre of Sangatte just up the road. Bill Bryson describes it in his Notes from a Small Island as "an interesting place that exists for solely for the purpose of giving English people in shell suits somewhere to go for the day" and its buildings as examples of "1950s planners smitten with the novel possibilities of concrete".

Hardly an idyllic day-trip then, but Calais' main attraction is its large number of hypermarkets in the Channel Tunnel terminal area known as "Cite Europe".

Whether you are travelling through Calais on the way back to the UK or just coming across for the day, this is the place to stock up on wine if you are looking for some everyday-drinking bottles. Stick to a few simple principles and you can have an instant cellar of reliable, enjoyable wine for a lot less than it would cost in the UK - even if you include the travel costs of getting there.

One of my principles when buying wine is to try and get it as close to the region in which it is produced as possible - and the smaller the wine-producing area, the nearer you need to get to find the decent stuff. Wine-buying in Calais is about getting good bottles of mainstream French wines that are, or at least should be, more interesting and cost rather less that what you'll find in a UK supermarket.

To get the best out of a day trip to Calais then, you need to do the following:

1) travel out of season; Calais is never that nice a place, so don't go for the scenery; out of season, the crossing will be much cheaper than in the height of summer when all the schools are on holiday

2) you do need to buy a fair amount of wine in order to offset the costs of getting to Calais and back; the "working amount" maximum for personal import limits is 90 litres, which is 120 bottles. This may seem like a lot, but is only around a year's supply if you share a bottle with your other half every weekend evening.

3) avoid very specialist, obscure or small-scale areas; if Savoie or Grand Cru Burgundy is your thing, you are unlikely to find much of it in a supermarket.

Better, stick to the larger, more reliable areas such as Bordeaux, the south west in general (Corbieres, Languedoc-Rousillon) and the southern Rhone. A good guide is to look at the volume of shelf space given to a particular region - there larger the shelf space, the safer the bet.

4) choose your price range - in my experience, French supermarkets tend to specialise in in wines at the €4 - €10 price range. Anything cheaper may well be fine, perhaps a little rustic, but if you don't like it you can always put it in the cooking. Anything more expensive is really the domain of more specialist sellers.

5) look for medal-winners in regional competitions; wine competitions have had something of a bad press in recent years, especially the larger ones, but local competitions have a reputation to maintain and medals here really do mean something.

6) choose a good supermarket; Auchan has a wide range of good, well-priced wines from all major areas of France.

7) remember you can stock up on other things too; look for local beers from northeast France and regional cheeses.

8) allow plenty of time for your shopping; there are some seriously big hypermarkets in Cite Europe with plenty of things to look at, so two hours just for your wine is sensible, plus time for anything else

Depending on whether you just go for the shopping or do want something of a day trip, you can also head up the coastal road to Boulogne - with its walled old town on a hilltop, it's much more worthy of a visit and event has a couple of Logis de France hotel restaurants that are usually worth seeking out.

If you are travelling further afield and just using Calais as your base for travelling between Cambridge and France, it is still worth stocking up at Cite Europe, albeit on your way back and not out - 120 bottles of wine are quite heavy and even a big car will feel wallowy with so much weight on board, which is not ideal for B-road cruising during your two-week driving holiday.

Remember that the wines may well improve with age - plan on buying enough for this year and next; a couple can bring back enough wine for a bottle each weekend evening for two years.

Links

Auchan - wine list (only in French):

http://www.auchan.fr/vad/sdv/homeUnivers.jsp?channelid=2902803

Auchan Calais - map:

http://www.multimap.com/maps/?qs=calais&countryCode=GB#map=50.94465,1.81476184&bd=useful_information&loc=FR:50.94435:1.81476:17Av.%20Roger%20Salengro,%20calaisAvenue%20Roger%20Salengro,%2062100,%20Calais,%20Pas-de-Calais

Cite Europe (in English):

http://en.citeeurope.com/vue/form/citeeuropeuk/accueil/accueil.htm

Logis de France

http://www.logis-de-france.fr/uk/recherch/index-ca.htm

Hungarian Food and Wine Tasting

The recent Hungarian tasting organised by the Cambridge Food and Wine Society was a first in a number of ways - not only the Society's first ever Hungarian tasting, it was also their first joint event (in this case with with the Cambridge Szeged Society).

Szeged (pronounced SEH-ged) is a city in the south of Hungary, situated on a great plain and with the country's oldest university, similar to Cambridge with which it has been twinned since 1987. The Cambridge Szeged Society, chaired by Julia Seiber Boyd, kindly provided us with some traditional Hungarian food to go with the wines which were presented by Lucien Lanci, proprietor of Malux and supplier to no less an institution than the Hungarian embassy in London.

Lucien started by explaining that all the wines came from small producers who make high-quality wines in limited quantities. He also highlighted the three main recent phases the Hungarian wine industry has been through, starting with the period under communism in which quantity was everything, through the post-Berlin Wall period in which Hungary tried to make a name for itself with instantly-recognisable international grape varieties and on to the present where the emphasis is much more on local varieties. With 22 wine regions and a clutch of native grapes, Hungary produces a wide range of types and styles.

We started then with a Cserszegi Fűszeres (CHAIR-say-gee FOO-ser-esh) from the Szeged region by Frittmann, Hungary's wine producer of the year in 2007. Light, aromatic and somewhat floral, this was reminiscent of a Gewurztraminer, which is not surprising as, although of decidedly mixed descent, it includes some gewurz in its parentage.

This was followed by a much heavier white called Napbor (Hungarian for "sun wine") - we never did get to the bottom of the name or find out exactly which grape varieties it was made from, but with a very muted nose, deep yellow hue suggesting some oxidisation and plenty of oak, it was like an old-style Burgundy.

The first of the reds was a Kekfrankos, also known as Blaufraenkisch in neighbouring Austria and meaning the same thing - Blue Frankish or Blue Franc; apparently, the wine was extremely popular with Napoleon's troops who used to buy it with their blue Francs, or so the story goes. Kekfrankos / Blaufraenkisch tends to produce wines with a rasp of juicy sour cherries but not too much else, but can be very pleasant if well made, as this one was. Like the first wine, it was also by Frittmann and, unusually, from the Szeged area (most Kekfrankos is grown near the Austrian border).

The last of the dry wines was perhaps the most famous Hungarian wine after Tokaji - Bulls' Blood or Egri Bikaver, "Egri" here indicating the wine comes from Eger in the north of Hungary. Rich, with brambly fruits and smooth vanilla oak, this was the best of the dry wines - an achievement reflected in the fact it has won medals at two Hungarian events (Bukkvinfest 2008 and a gold in Eger 2008).

Finally, we ended with perhaps Hungary's greatest contribution to wine; Tokaj is a town in north eastern Hungary where the climate produces reliable conditions for botrytis, or noble rot, to form on the grapes. Botrytis is a type of fungus that grows on the grape skin and sucks out the moisture from the grape without exposing it to the air so that the grape itself shrivels but does not spoil. The fungus, however, needs quite specific conditions and these are found in only a few areas, such as around Tokaj, near Lake Neusidl in neighbouring Austria and also in Sauternes in Bordeaux.

The Tokaji we tried, however, was not from botrytised grapes, but a blend of late-harvested, super-ripe grapes (equivalent to a Spaetlese in Germany or Austria) giving a much lighter-tasting wine, in this case with hints of guava.

The formalities of the wine-tasting over, we then sampled some excellent Hungarian food, prepared by various members of the Cambridge Szeged Society.


The Wines - all available from Malux Ltd

Csersegi Fuszeres, Frittmann, 2008 (£8.70)

Napbor, St Andrea, 2007 (£11.65)

Kekfrankos, Frittmann, 2007 (£8.45)

Egri Bikaver, St Andrea, 2006 (£10.20)

Tokaji Cuvee, 2007 (£10)

The Food - provided by members of the Cambridge Szeged Society

Sour cherry soup
Korosot Liptoi (a type of cottage cheese with added spices)
Beef gulyas (goulash)
Rakott Burgonya (a hot casserole of potatoes, salami and eggs)
Pork meat balls and soured cabbage
Hungarian-style red cabbage
Mushroom pancakes
Jerusalem artichoke salad
Lecso with parsnip
Poppy seed pastries
Cherry pie

Links

Cambridge Food and Wine Society - http://www.cambridgefoodandwinesociety.org.uk/

Cambridge Szeged Society - http://www.cambridge-szeged-society.org.uk/

Cambridge Szeged Society newsletter with recipes (on p4) - http://www.cambridge-szeged-society.org.uk/graphics/Szeged%20Newsletter%202010%20pdf.pdf

Malux Ltd - http://www.hungarianfoodandwine.com/

Profile of Szeged on Wikipedia - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Szeged

Jancis Robinson article on Hungarian wines - http://www.ft.com/cms/s/2/0fcb53e4-4e63-11df-b48d-00144feab49a.html

Image credit: Szeged montage from Wikipedia, user Uzo19

Wine-buying in France; Alsace

There are two things I particularly like when buying wine - firstly, getting a bargain and secondly, trying something local; whilst it's not always true that the locals keep the good stuff for themselves and export the dross, there is certainly some merit in buying wine close to where it is produced - and the smaller the quantities and more obscure the area, the truer this becomes.

Alsace has around 15,000 hectares of vineyards - just over a tenth of the amount in Bordeaux, for example. In practice, this means that there is just not a huge amount of Alsace wine to go around. So, whilst reliable, everyday (and often rather good) examples of Bordeaux can be found in almost any French supermarket, their Alsace selections tend to be more limited and somewhat disappointing. To get the best wines at the best prices from Alsace, a trip there is required.

Alsace is a somewhat curious area of eastern France - for many years a borderland fought over by the French and the Germans, it can be slightly disorienting for the visitor to be in this part of France with its Germanic local dialect, wine labelled by grape variety and sold in tall fluted bottles and distinctly Germanic cuisine - albeit transformed into something very delicious and decidedly French.

It is possible to get to Alsace from Cambridge within a day's driving if you catch an early Le Shuttle train from Folkestone, but it is much nicer to break the journey up with a stop-over in either Champagne or even the Belgian Ardennes for a spot of Trappist beer.

The main cities of Alsace are Strasbourg to the north and Colmar to the South, and both are lovely and well worth a visit; but the Route des Vins, or Alsace wine route, will take you away from the larger towns and through some of the prettiest villages I have ever seen - colourful, timber-framed, gabled houses bedecked with flowers, storks nesting, cobbled streets and views of vineyards, abandoned castles and the Vosges mountains in the background. The best way to explore the area is to stop at a few villages (Riquewhir and Eguisheim are both especially lovely) and also take in the odd vineyard walk as you follow the Route des Vins.

The Vosges are a range of low-lying mountains which form more of a natural border between France and Germany than the river Rhine, hence the region's turbulent past; rising to just over 1,400m at their highest, they provide a rain shadow for the vines growing lower down and allow relatively warm-climate varieties to be grown this far north. French gastronomy has dictated that Alsace wines, unlike their German counterparts across the river, be fermented into something full, dry and aromatic to match with the rich local food which includes tarte flambee, choucroute and coq au riesling.

The Hautes Vosges (Higher Vosges) to the south provide the greatest amount of shelter for the vines and it is here that the best, fullest wines can be found; the main grape varieties grown here are Riesling (totally different from, but equal in stature to Chardonnay as the great white wine grape), Pinot Blanc, Pinot Gris, Muscat and Gewurztraminer. The labelling is relatively straightforward as there are no sub-regions of Alsace, merely (basic) AC Alsace and (superior) Grand Cru for still, dry wines. Alsace does, however, also produce both sparkling wine (Cremant d'Alsace) and sweet wines (Vendange Tardive and Selection de Grains Nobles).

Almost any wine village will have several wineries offering tastings and some are more famous than others. Any self-respecting wine guide should recommend Hugel, Trimbach, Zind-Humbrecht, Paul Blanck and Rolly Gassmann. However, as these are mostly available in Cambridge from either Waitrose or one of our various wine merchants, I wanted to try something not generally (if at all) available in the UK, and so we rolled into the Paul Schneider tasting room in Eguisheim.

In the days - not that long ago - when the pound was reasonably strong against the Euro, the wines here were ridiculously cheap for the quality - the standard range of wines started at €3.50 and maxed out at €6.00 - including a number of prize-winning wines. I sampled three rather excellent wines:

Paul Schneider Pinot Planc 2005 (Medaille d'Or Paris) - €4.50

Crisp, medium weight and delicious with flavours of apples and pears, good as an aperitif or at this age with light dishes, such as white fish or soft cheeses. However, with time, Alsace Pinot Blanc gains body and becomes a much fuller wine altogether.

Paul Schneider Riesling 2006 (Vielles Vignes) - €6.00

An excellent, full Riesling with crisp bite, good body and structure and nice, honeyed finish.

Paul Schneider Pinot Gris 2005 (Medaille d'Or Colmar) - €6.00

The ripest, fullest wine here, rich and fat, sumptuous and savoury, matches well with the local food including quiche and pork.

Sadly, as noted above, Paul Schneider wines are not available in the UK, but other Alsace producers are.

Alsace wines in general match particularly well with "modern international" cuisine - that is, well-seasoned, restaurant-style food with strong flavours and heavily reduced sauces.

Links

Paul Schneider - http://www.vins-paul-schneider.fr/

Image credits

Image of Paul Schneider from the winery's website

Image of Eguisheim by Mschlindwein - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Mschlindwein

Asda, Extra Special 2007 Côtes du Rhône-Villages - and an accompanying recipe

A fellow committee member from the Cambridge Food and Wine Society passed on this Jancis Robinson recommendation to me some months ago.

I do not think I have ever bought a bottle of wine from Asda before, but when the First Lady of Wine gives it the thumbs up, then it's definitely worth a try. Jancis was impressed with its "rich spiciness and the fact that it is not overburdened with dry tannins, while being unmistakably from this beautiful rocky, lavender-scented western corner of Provence".

Priced at under a fiver, this is very much in "everyday wine" territory and as an everyday wine, or even something for a Sunday lunch with the family, it is very good, but (in our household, at least) not necessarily something to impress guests with. Smooth, fruity and complex, it is not quite as well made as the two previous red wines I have reviewed here and which I was able to buy for just a few pennies more (albeit, seriously discounted from their full list prices).

However, as it would be a shame to use up either the Californian Merlot or the New Zealand Syrah-Viognier in a casserole (not least because they were available in only limited quantities), and since Asda's stocks of this wine are plentiful, I put half into a beef casserole and we drank the rest with the meal.

There are two main herbs in this recipe and both will grow easily in a pot in a sunny aspect of the garden (in Cambridge, at least) - rosemary and thyme. The rosemary leaves need to be finely chopped and the stalks discarded; the thyme should tied in a bundle with cotton and removed at the end of cooking.

-------------------------

Beef casserole with red wine and Mediterranean herbs, served with creamy mashed potato and green beans - serves 3/4

It should go without saying that good quality beef is the key to this recipe; Cambridge and its surrounding villages have plenty of good butchers, but for this I used beef from Waitrose.

Ingredients

Casserole

A little sunflower oil
500g braising / stewing steak or similar
1 large onion
2 stalks of celery
2 large carrots
1/2 bottle Asda Extra Special 2007 Côtes du Rhône-Villages
300ml stock
Chopped rosemary (1 stalk or to taste)
Bundle of thyme, tied tightly with cotton
2 bay leaves
Crushed garlic (1/2 clove - 2 cloves according to taste)

Creamy Mashed Potato

5 large potatoes
Butter
Milk
Salt and pepper

Method

For the stock:

You can of course buy stock, but the easiest way is simply to simmer the left-over bones from a roast dinner in a pan of water seasoned with salt, pepper, bay leaf and an onion for an hour or so. Alternately, some butchers will give away bags of bones for stock-making (try Andrew's on Burleigh Street).

For the casserole:

Wash the meat, pat dry with kitchen roll and season generously all over with salt and pepper

Heat the oil in a heavy-bottomed pan and brown the meat in small batches, transferring each batch to a dish once browned; the meat should be crispy on the outside with caramelised juices

Having removed all the browned meat, add the onion, carrot and celery to the pan, a little more oil if needed and cook through for 5 - 10 minutes, then turn the heat right down and continue cooking very gently for a further 10 minutes to bring out the sweetness of the vegetables

Add back the browned beef and pour in the wine, bring to the boil under a high flame for around a minute to boil off all the alcohol

Add the stock, crushed garlic and herbs, cover and simmer on the gentlest of flames with bubbles barely breaking the surface for 2 - 3 hours

If you can afford to wait, this dish will improve significantly if left to stand overnight and a good heavy-bottomed pan will keep it gently cooking for many hours after you have turned off the heat.

For the creamy mashed potato:

Peel the potatoes and cut into 8 along the same axis to give long, thin strips, rather than cubes

Simmer very gently in unsalted water for around 20 minutes until the potatoes are almost falling apart

Strain, put into a bowl add a generous helping of butter, milk, salt and pepper and mash thoroughly until a deliciously smooth creamy consistency is achieved

Serve the casserole and mash with green beans and plenty more of the Côtes du Rhône-Villages.