Interestingly Oxidized Wine

Roucaillat from Hautes Terres de Comberousse

I have a 1996 Vin Jaune d'Arbois that I can't wait to drink. I blogged about this wine in June and it was titled "Local Crazies and Old Yellow Wine" in case you are interested. The local crazies part made me giggle tonight when I read it again. Anyway, I plan to drink this wine with friends over Thanksgiving this year.

Thinking about it lead me to my local wine shop, and to question the shop keep, "I understand if you do not have any vin jaune, but do you have anything that is that unusual and interesting?". I am always looking for new interesting wines, and I enjoy learning about the novel wine making processes as much as the wines themselves. It just so happened that the shop had something pretty interesting. Not a vin jaune, but nice nonetheless.

Now the key to the interesting flavor of a vin jaune is the fact that it slow ferments and ages in a cask for SIX years before it goes into a bottle. On top of that, the cask is never topped off, so there is a lot of oxidation.

Well, the wine I got tonight is fermented/aged for a more normal period of time, on the order of months rather than years, but at a higher temperature than normal, and with more oxygen allowed to enter the barrel than normal. It is from the Coteaux du Languedoc and it is called Roucaillat.

Sounds a bit technical and boring? Okay, forget all that. It tastes like a really light sherry. Claudia hates it, as she does vin jaune, and I love it. Also... I really love to hear these stories.

happy drinking,

-PMo

New Glasses in which to Pour Cotes du Rhone and the Birthday Girl

Les Garrigues

I picked up a 2007 Les Garrigues Cotes du Rhone yesterday. It is too young, but Grenache usually helps make a wine more drinkable even when it is young. In case you are wondering, the standard blend for a red Cotes du Rhone is Grenache, Syrah, and Mourvèdre with Cinsault, Carignan, Counoise, and Picpoul to lesser degrees. They always have a lot of Grencahe, upwards of 40% depending on the sub-region. Anyway, I think I will buy this again, but I will cellar it for at least a year, or drink it with food.



Today, I got some bargain wine glasses. Linens n' Things is going out of business, so I dropped in for some depressing shopping in a ransacked store. Seriously, that place looked like a tornado hit it. I don't think they had 2 matching towels, or 2 folded towels for that matter. I did find some wine glasses that I like. I got 4 red and 4 white wine glasses that were even in boxes. So I bought them and you can see one in the picture. I like how huge it is ;)

Claudia's Birthday

I think Claudia had a nice birthday weekend. We had a great dinner with friends last night, and today we were about as lazy as we possibly could be. I think we changed out of our jammies (mine have rubber duckies on them) at 2:00 PM. Then we went out for lunch. That was it. Just a nice relaxing Sunday.

Here is one cute picture. For the rest, go to facebook.

happy drinking,
-PMo