I bought a wedge of Dorset which I slathered with a homemade onion jam to

I was planning on making a pepper-crusted NY strip with buttery glazed portobellos on one night and garlic-rosemary pork chops with roasted potatoes on another night. The wine would have to go with both. So, Cotes du Rhone or something like that would be best.

I didn’t see any CdR’s that seems interesting but along the way I saw this Costieres de Nimes. CdN is officially considered part of the Rhone Valley and has been an AOC since 1986, even though it is geographically part of the Languedoc.

Most wines of the southern Rhone have a foundation of Grenache with a splash of syrah, mourvedre, cinsault, and carignan (among other varietals) added in various ratios. This wine is made with vines that are 50-60 years old. The yields are low resulting in a hearty wine with bright red fruit and earthy flavors combined with the spicy meatiness of the syrah.

Like the Saumur I wrote about, I ultimately picked this wine over the store’s other offerings because the back label told me that it was imported by Robert Kacher. That told me that I was buying an artisan-made, well-crafted wine that would be true to the terroir, deliciously non-corporate. With a little info on the label about the varietals in the cuvee, I was also sure that I was buying a wine that would go with the steak and mushrooms, too. And, at $15, I also knew it was a great deal.

I didn’t have a particular dish in mind when I bought it. I just wanted to be sure that I got it while it was available. These are very small production wines from a thousand-year old enclosed vineyard in Cruzille, a village of Macon. The vines are mostly 50-100 years old and chemicals have never been used. They have been certified biodynamic since 1998.

So, after all that anticipation, I ended up drinking the bottle with some simple chicken and mushroom risotto. It turned out to be a perfect pairing. The wine was flinty and floral, matching the dish’s sage and mushroom creaminess.

Their wines are split between some racks by the meat cases and an open fridge case which also cools a big beer selection. There’s a decent and wide-ranging selection with a few surprises to be found. This Saumur caught my eye because I recognized the appellation name. Saumur is part of the Loire Valley known to produce excellent Chenin Blanc, a varietal I love. Chenin Blanc is the grape of the better-known Vouvray and it is produced in a wide range of styles and quality. I might not have taken a chance on this one, even at only $15, but I always check the back label to see if it was imported by anyone I know and respect. A spin of the bottle and I discovered that it was imported by Robert Kacher, a well-respected importer known to have a great palate and a discerning portfolio.

The wine did not disappoint. It is round and fragrant with rich melon and crisp pear flavors. The acidity is well balanced with the sweet fruit. The vineyard has been owned by the same family for more than 200 years and is organic. At $15, this is a delicious bargain. Hurry or I will have bought all the rest of the bottles before you have a chance.

I paid around $35 for the bottle, a bit of a splurge, but Pinot Noir is so hard to grow well that you’ve got to pay for the decent stuff. At lower price points, it’s just not all that great because they really have to limit yields and closely tend the vines. It’s often vinified by vineyard and, more often, by vineyard blocks (small, select parcels within specific vineyards.) All that jacks up the price but quality often goes up much faster than the cost. A $35 bottle can be exponentially better than a $20 one. Still, it’s a splurge and I usually only drink it when I’m making something special to eat.

After having bronchitis for the entire month of December, Big Tim and I were ready to have some wine for the first time since Thanksgiving. I bought duck breast at Foodies which are fantastically easy to make and completely delicious. I seared them, fatty skin side down, so they were nice and crispy. Then, while they rested, I made a cherry glaze with some Luxardo-marinated cherries that I had in the fridge. The sweet cherry and crispy duck was a perfect match for this spicy wine with tart tannins. In all, a nice welcome back!

Didier Dagueneau was one of those bigger than life wine makers whose wines live up to the hype. He was killed in an ultralight aircraft accident in 2008 and this, the 2007 Silex, is the last vintage in which he had a hand. Pouilly is an appellation in the Loire Valley where benchmark  sauvignon blanc is made. Ruthless pruning and ultralow yields in his vineyards coupled with oak barrels and a very personal winemaking style come together to produce singular wines. These are not your average sauvignon blancs.

I first heard of Didier while watching one of Jancis Robinson’s fantastic series on wine. In this series, she breaks down the world of wine into the most well-known varietals. She travels to the Old World origins of these grapes and to the New World counterparts. For sauvignon blanc, she visits New Zealand’s Cloudy Bay and stops by Didier’s house for some of his wine. Maybe it’s that he roasts some gigantic steaks on an open hearth for her or perhaps it’s because she calls him the “enfant terrible” of the appellation, I just knew that I’d need to drink his wine.

Just before heading over to Brix, I was glancing through the latest Wine Spectator. The last page had a recipe for Dungeness Crab to pair with sauvignon blanc. It was on my mind when I saw the Silex, so I know what I’ll be making when I open the bottle. But then again, maybe I’ll just pop the cork with some friends and a little Loire Valley goat cheese for Big Tim’s upcoming birthday. It’s like that like from Sideways – though this only cost $150, not $2500 that a ’62 Cheval Blanc might fetch – any day you open a Didier Dagueneau Pouilly-Fume is a special day.

The real trick to serving spaghetti and meatballs is finding a wine to stand up to the acidity in the tomato sauce. Chianti is the classic pairing because the Tuscan sun produces both wonderful tomatoes and the Sangiovese grape. Nearby in Umbria is Montefalco where excellent Sangiovese is also grown. But there, they also grow rare Sagrantino which adds longevity and great structure to the Sangiovese. Most producers put their best Sagrantino into top cuvees with only a dash of other varietals. Their “Rosso” cuvees are primarily Sangiovese with a dash of Sagrantino and other varietals. There are some whites bottled here, too.

Arnaldo-Caprai is one of the top producers in this little-known DOC. (Paolo Bea is my other favorite producer although their wines are somewhat more expensive than Arnaldo-Caprai’s.) I picked up a bottle of their “Rosso” cuvee at Federal Wine where a great selection of excellent Italian wines can be found. It is 70% Sangiovese, 15% Sagrantino and 15% Merlot. The Sangiovese tastes delicious with the tomato sauce while the Merlot adds a touch of sweet fruit that balances the acidity.

A trip to the farmers market netted me some potatoes and leeks which formed the base of a ragu. I added a cup of the Madiran, rosemary, and mushrooms to my market produce plus, the secret ingredient, prunes for sweetness. While the potatoes were softening and the ragu flavors melding, I seared the duck legs until the skin was super-crispy.

I had opened the wine at least three hours before the meal and used my turbo-aerator to soften the tannins. Madiran is made from the grape “tannat” which is nearly black in color and is super-tannic. Those grippy tannins rinse the duckfat off the palate and combine to make a pleasing mouthfeel. This is hardly a sipping wine and only masochists would drink it without food. With duck over a potato-leek ragu and a few hours in the decanter, it’s a delicious pairing.

The first time I had this delicious bottle of joy, I was just beginning my adventures around the world with wine. I had read enough and shopped enough to recognize the Chidane name so that I could buy with confidence. It was, however, just a coincidence that I also had a remarkable, tangy goat cheese at home that I was savoring while keeping it safely out of Big Tim’s reach. After dinner one evening, I decided to open that bottle and have it with the cheese which had been ripening on the counter in the kitchen.

The wine, an  off-dry Chenin Blanc, was explosive with honeyed melon and peaches. Like the rieslings that I love, it dances on the edge of a blade between sweetness and acidity while never tipping too far to one side. Knowing the reputation of its maker, I was prepared to enjoy the wine but I had never before known the carnal joy of a perfect wine pairing. With a bite of the cheese melting in my mouth and a sip of the wine, the sweetness swirled with the tartness. I went back and forth between the cheese and wine and, for the first time, understood the ecstasy of the relationship between food and wine.

 I rarely see it in stores around town but I always find it at Martignetti’s.  Whenever I’m there, I usually pick up a bottle or two so that I’ll have one on hand. Sometimes I get one of Chidane’s other cuvees and have even had his sparkling wine a few times. They’re not cheap but you get a lot of thrill for less than $30. I suppose it’s because I drink it fairly regularly that I never got around to writing about it. 

Chenin Blanc is the white grape of the central part of France’s Loire Valley where its expressive zenith is reached in the ”Tuffeaux”, a regional limestone from which the great Chateaux are constructed. The area’s vines grow on the steep hillsides above while the caves are carved out of the stone below.  The wines are aged to perfection in those dark, humid caves. Montlouis is across the Loire River from Vouvray, where Francois Chidane’s holdings include one of the most cherished vineyards. I like to buy his wines from both sides of the river and, then, drink them side-by-side.

The weather is enormously variable from year to year in the Loire Valley. Winemakers have adapted by hand-harvesting multiple times through the vineyard to carefully select bunches according to ripeness levels. With great care, they decide whether those grapes should be made into dry, off-dry, or sweet wine. Sometimes the grapes are better suited for their sparkling wine depending on acidity and ripeness. All styles are delicious from the right maker so you should know whose wine you’re buying, as well as which style is in the bottle. “Sec” means dry, “demi-sec” is off-dry, “petillant” is sparkling and “moelleux” is sweet. Keep in mind that one man’s dry is another’s off-dry, just as with German wines.

Montlouis is an excellent starting place for the fascinating and delicious journey through the Loire Valley’s wines. Chenin Blanc is varied, not only by the levels of sweetness, but dramatically by vineyard location. A small curve in the river, a tilt in the angle of the hillside or a change in soil type and this grape is transformed into an expression of the place it was grown. Next to being there in person, that is the best way to experience the world of wine.