I purchased this wine about 10 days ago at Chronicle Wine Cellar in Pasadena, CA for $10.95. They are a great source for excellent wine buys in the LA area with unusual selections not found in supermarkets and a knowledgeable and helpful staff. They have an email list that you can subscribe to for cellar updates. To give you some sense of what the label looks like, I borrowed this from the 2004 vintage. The Chermette Beaujolais is also available online through wine merchants (find them by checking on Wine-Searcher).
This is a gamay wine, not as light and fruity as the better-known beaujolais nouveau but still not a heavily-oaked Napa cabernet sauvignon, either. It is a simple, fruit forward wine that ideally should have a silkiness of texture and low alcohol, making it easy to pair with a variety of food choices. This is a pleasant 12% alc/vol.
You can read more about Pierre Chermette and his vineyards by clicking here.
When I opened and poured out the first glass, it was ruby in color, with purple edges. The aromas were of cassis, raspberry, and a whiff of alcohol. When you tasted it it was full of black and red raspberrys and was slightly spicy. The wine had a surprisingly nice finish for a light red wine.
I had a glass while dinner was cooking, and because of the alcohol aromas (and because it was about 75 in the kitchen today, not cellar temp!), decided to pop it in the fridge for about 15 minutes to see how chilling it slightly worked for the wine. Beaujolais wines are excellent summer reds and bbq wines because they are often best slightly chilled.
Dinner tonight was herb roasted pork--an ideal match for the beaujolais. With it we had honey-roasted sweet potatoes and a great Jamie Oliver salad with peaches, prosciutto and mozzarella. The wine was a nice counterpoint to the herbs and garlic on the pork--rich without being too acidic or tannic. It helped to pick up a slightly herbal note in the wine. And the chilling did help with the alcohol.
Overall, this wine has excellent QPR and would make a food-friendly choice for grilled meat, bbq, and pasta dishes.
2 comments:
Hey Dr. Debs,
Thanks for the inexpensive Beaujolais tip. I happen to LOVE Beaujolais, and I think it represents one of the better values in wine...period. There are many cru Beaujolais that retail for about $17-18, and even some for under $15, like the 2005 Terre Dorre (spelling?) Cote de Brouilly.
I just started a blog too -you can access it if you're curious by clicking on my name. Take it easy, have fun writing about food and wine.
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