Or: ‘One Step Closer to Being a Beaujolais Blog’
Leisurely wine-drinking hasn’t been an activity I’ve had a lot of time for lately, but I’ve still been tasting samples and sitting down with reps nearly everyday in search of wines for the list.
For reds, the lighter and softer examples have been the most versatile with the flavours of the dishes (as expected). What use do monster reds really have in food pairing (besides charred, well done steak with mole sauce)? I’ve been searching for a good bottle of Cru Beaujolais that I could offer at a reasonable price (more of a daunting task that it should be) as many of the greatest vigneron-producers of the region aren’t available in BC, and when they are, the prices are discouraging. Case in point is Marcel Lapierre’s Morgon, which in California will often roll in at the low $20s (a great by-the-glass price!) as opposed to up here in the LDB at $39 (an impossible by-the-glass price).
So far this week I’ve found two bottles of 2008 that I had never seen before. One is from Saint-Amour – the most northerly of the 10 cru villages and one known for its lightness. The other from Moulin-A-Vent, a few villages south of Saint-Amour, and likely the most revered cru for serious, age-worthy and structured Beaujolais.
Henry Fessy ’08 Saint-Amour
Light and pretty with vibrant strawberry fruit, welcomed acidity, and a little depth. Gamay should have a prettiness and an allure, which this wine has. There is a good chance it will make an appearance on the wine list by next weekend. $25 at 39th & Cambie.
Domaine Piron-Lameloise ’08 Moulin-A-Vent ‘Vielles Vignes’
This one has a little more body and darker fruit. It showed some earthiness with the floral and cherry/plummy characters. This bottle seemed to show some volatile-acidity and finished with a slight vinegary taste. It may have simply been an off bottle, but I wasn’t crazy about it. Let me know if you’ve tried it and what you think. $25 at Kits Wine Cellar.
Also, two of Dominique Piron’s 2009 wines are available at great prices. Their village level ‘Domaine de la Chanaise’ is available at 39th & Cambie for $16.99 and their vibrant and very summer worthy rosé is at Kits Wine Cellar for under $20.
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4 Responses:
July 29th, 2010 at 12:19 pm
I was about to Grab the Domaine Piron-Lameloise at Kits but instead grabbed the 93 Lopez Rose! Now don’t know if I should get it because of the volatile, or maybe just the bottle
the only other review i could find for the 08
http://blog.weygandtwines.com/archives/869
July 30th, 2010 at 9:23 pm
Cool – can’t wait to try your new wines in a few weeks.
As for ‘big’ wine pairing – try ketchup 
.
Also, ‘big’ wine is all relative. I admit that I love a good zinfandel with bbq.
July 31st, 2010 at 4:22 pm
I like the avenue you took with the R Lopez Weston. Let me know if you do pick up a bottle of the Piron-Lameloise and how you found it – that review you referenced looks favourable.
Shea – I agree that BBQs open up the field for weightier wines (like Zin for instance).
August 19th, 2010 at 12:38 am
I am catching up on my RSS feeds, so I apologize for the belated comment: I wanted to second your disappointment with the Piron (I am still confused about the two Pirons I might add, but the Beaujolais Rosé from the other? Piron is fantastic.) Though I definitely found it structured, it lacked a certain elegance, or really prettiness, that my young, impressionable mind seems to think that Beau should have. It was a bit brutish. I am wary of pin-pointing technical flaws – I’m half-drunk and halfway through a bottle of Rasteau that on first sniff I swore I caught a whiff of cork-taint – but it did leave a proverbial bad taste in my mouth.