Dinner - Zeppolis (French Wine)

Welcome to Zeppolis

This week sadly was Zeppoli's final wine dinner of the semester. I can't believe we're already at the end! That's kind of scary for me because I am a senior and do not want to go out into the real world but I digress...  At least we finished up strong with French wines.  Whenever you take a wine class or even talk about wine French wine inevitably comes up.  In a country where wine is produced in such huge amounts I have had relatively little French wine.  In fact, I am not even sure if I've had any French wine.  At home it seems to be lots of California and Australian wines so I don't even have much experience with Old World wines.  This is why I was so excited for the French wine dinner and some wines lived up to expectations while some did not.  I'll get into that below.

You could easily taste how different some of the wines were.  "Fruit forward" is the opposite of how I'd describe some of the reds and the Chardonnay was much more crisp and un-oakey it almost tasted like a different varietal.  I know I'm supposed to have a favorite style, Old World or New World, but I can appreciate both styles.  Wine is wine, man.  

As always, to die for

The food was delicious as always, especially the pasta dishes.  We had a smorgasbord of cheese and crackers (including fresh mozzarella and tomato. Mmm.), calamari salad, twice baked potato, cheese bread, pasta pinwheels, pasta salad, and one other pasta dish with a red sauce.  Obviously the lighter dishes, the pasta salad, cheese and crackers, calamari salad, were meant to pair with the white wines and the backed potato and heavy pasta dishes were meant to pair with the reds.  The pasta pinwheels, by the way, were some of the most delicious pasta I have ever had.  Note to anyone going to Zeppoli's, get those.  I want to go back just for those pinwheels.  

I actually had the patience this time this time to wait on the wine before scarfing all the food.  And while all of it was gone by the time I got to the last few reds, I was amazed how much the food changed some of the wines.  I came in with a strategy this time.  Zeppoli's has a generous pour so there is plenty for two sips.  I would take an initial sip without any food, savor the wine, and then take another sip after eating some of the food.  This strategy served me well with some the wines, especially the whites, while making some of the reds worse.  

Took pictures of the wines I deemed worthy to buy

The first wine, the Chateau Gaillard Touraine Sauvignon Blanc, was absolutely delicious. From the Loire Valley, the wine had a great, floral nose that backed it up with a crisp, acidic finish.  At $11.99 we bought this wine and enjoyed that night.  I knew I would like it, being such a fan of Sauvignon Blanc, but it exceeded my expectations.  Those wines that have some of those tropical fruit flavors I just can't resist.  Very strong start to the wine section of dinner.  In fact, this wine was so good I think it kind of overshadowed the next one which was good in its own right.

Bordeaux Blanc Sec

The Chateau Suau 2010 Bordeaux Blanc Sec is a blended wine with Semillon, Muscadet, and my favorite, Sauvignon Blanc.  I've said before in this blog that I am not very good at picking out particular descriptors but I know what Sauvignon Blanc tastes like after trying wines all semester and the Sauvignon Blanc really came through on the nose.  It is a little exciting for me to see how my ability to pick out specific characteristics is progressing, even if it is limited to an entire grape variety.  Maybe I'm being a wine nerd here but whatever.  I definitely got the Sauvignon Blanc crispness and acidity from tasting the wine but it was not as acidic as the first wine.  I'd say it was more complex, though, as the flavors of the other grape varieties came through and added something to the wine.  If I had not tasted the Chateau Gaillard Touraine before this one, I think I would have liked it more.  Wine can be relative like that in tastings and it is an example how tasting a wine can effect another one.  With that being said, I really do think it was a good wine.  And it tasted great with the calamari.  The calamari served to neutralize some of the harshness and let the flavors really come out.

The same wine a few years apart. Change

Something to note about the label on this wine: it is French but the producer caters the wine towards American tastes and customs.  If you think about it, Americans make up a huge portion of demand for wine and it makes sense to create labels that Americans can easily read and interpret.  This is not the same wine as above but it was made by the same producer and these wines are about five years apart.  They are the exact same wine.  Talk about how the wine industry is changing fast... The bottle on the right is the newer one and the label is vastly different.  You get the information you need from the label without having to interpret anything that the average wine drinking American wouldn't know how to interpret.  We talk about in class how labeling conventions and wine in general is transforming towards American tastes and this is a great real world example.  Really cool lesson that backs up what we learned in class.

But now its on to the next wine.  The Prochaine 2009 Chardonnay Vin de Pays is another example of a real world example backing up classroom material.  Vin de pays is French for "country wine" and is less expensive than the Grand Crus but a step about the table wine.  Its great to see those connections but now a little about the wine.  A Chardonnay that initially tasted a little creamy and a little like a California Chardonnay changed dramatically after being paired with cheese.  Totally unrecognizable and much, much better with cheese.  The heaviness of the wine went away and some tropical flavors came out which is different for a Chardonnay.  It tasted crisp.  Again, it probably would have tasted more crisp were it not for the first two wines but I tried not to let the first two shade my opinion on this one.  I thought it was a good wine that I would definitely have with cheese and not alone if I were to buy it.

French wines: The Selection

Now on to the reds.  This first red was a bonus red that we all probably would have been better off without.  The Manoir De Carra 2010 Beaujolais noveau was only in this tasting because it was getting to old for a noveau and you could tell.  That type of wine is usually seen as an indicator of how the harvest us going to in Burgundy since it comes out so fast and is meant to be consumed young. Two years this later, this wine was not aging well.  I don't really have much to say about it other than bleh.

The next red was better, drinkable at least.  From the same vintage, the Jean-marc burgaud Beaujolais Villages wine dealt with its age much better than the noveau.  It actually might not have been ready to consume yet because I thought it came off hot but had some nice fruit flavors that really showed themselves after a bite of pasta.  For a wine with only 12.5% alcohol you would not expect it to be so hot but I think it has potential to be aged and be better for it.

This next wine, the Georges DuBoeuf 2010 Morgon Descombes Burgundy, showed some very interesting, old world qualities.  It had a good nose but I did not detect any fruit flavors after a taste.  It was strange to have a wine that was not fruit forward at all but I really liked it.  It even had an interesting after taste that I enjoyed even though I cannot explain exactly what it tasted like.  You normally think of French wines as great wines to pair with food but this did not do well with the bite of pasta I had.  Maybe it was the type of food but I enjoyed it more by itself.

 With the Charles Thomas 2009 Cotes du Rhone Rouge, we finally got ourselves to a GSM blend and it was definitely a big wine.  In fact, I thought it was too bad and at 13% alcohol it was really hot.  I got an interesting nose with some berry but it was completely overpowered by how hot it was.  Maybe it would get better with age and if that is the case, it was definitely not ready to be drunk at this point in time.

We did get a second GSM, and older one from the 2004 vintage, and it was much better even at the exact same price point.  The Clos de Sixte Lirac was much more mellow than the first GSM and that might be because it was 5 years older.  That extra aging could have given it time to balance out and produce a much better wine.  Even at 14.5% alcohol, a significant amount more than the first one, I detected much less hotness even though GSMs are known to be big wines.  I enjoyed this one much more.

Here is the wine I talked about earlier with the drastic label change.  The Chateau Suau 2009 "Cadillac" Merlot/Cab blend from Bordeaux aged in oak was pretty complex.  I actually did not like the initial taste but the finish lingered in my mouth and was actually really good.  Intriguing wine but I decided not to purchase it at the end of the night.

Finally, we got to the Chateau Grimard 2010 Bordeaux which was the one wine tasted that was no for sale.  This was actually the last bottle they had but our host wanted us to experience a real deal Bordeaux.  There was no fruit flavors I could detect even thought the description said there would be but that was not really a bad thing.  It was tannic and not as hot as either of the GSMs and overall pretty good.  I would not have bought it even if it was on sale but it was a good way to close out the French wine dinner.

Overall, I think I got a whole new appreciation for French wine and discovered that I especially like the whites.  A more crisp Chardonnay is right up my style and I love the Sauvignon Blanc grape variety which the French make great wines out of.  I am sad that this is the last Zeppoli's wine dinner but I really appreciate them putting the dinners on every other week.  I found some wines that I really enjoy through the process and plan on going back to Zeppoli's soon.