Sunday casual white wines
Last Sunday, some friends came to eat in the afternoon. We started with some beers and charcuterie for the "apéro". Then, we drank these 3 whites, sipping while cooking and eating "crêpes salées" (savoury crêpes or what was supposed to be "galettes") the whole day, from right after we finished the apéro, roughly from around 4 in the afternoon until they left around midnight. It was fun.
More especially, that we tried first to make the crêpes with "whole-wheat" flour bought by my friend, who thought that it was the same as the one used in Britanny (Bretagne) to make the "galettes", except that galettes in Britanny are made with "buckwheat", not "whole-wheat". So, we ended up with some kind of a weird liquid with some lumps of grains floating around, resulting in something similar to "oatmeal" in milk for breakfast. Once into the pan, the substance turned into a doughy disaster looking like a bizarre blob.
After 2 attempts, I told my friend, the consistency is not good, something is wrong. We blamed it on the pan and the flour. I poured the liquid blob into the sink and, this time prepared the crepes concoction with regular white flour and my own recipe (which include rum and beer). And ended up making:
- Crêpes with ham, mushrooms, cheese and egg.
- Crêpes with smoked salmon and mascarpone, lemon.
- Crêpes with camembert, mushrooms and emmental.
😋😋😋😋😋😋😋😋😋😋
After the beers for the apéro with the charcuterie, we opened the following wines (in this order) to pair with the crêpes:
Drouhin Vaudon Petit Chablis 2018 - Burgundy, France (@maisonjosephdrouhin)
Grape variety: 100% Chardonnay
Price: €14-17 (HKD 130 - 157)
Nice, fresh, medium-bodied, great balance and nicely coating the palate, ample and generous without being heavy, with substance and texture, yellow fruits, mineral notes, with a dash of oak treatment to add dimensions and volume, as well as a delectable buttery taste. Lovely. Nicely done and very satisfying.
******************************
Villa Sparina Gavi - Piedmonte, Italy 2019 (@villasparina)
Grape variety: 100% Cortese
Price: €11-14 (HKD 100-130) (around HKD 160-180 in HK, weird...)
Always a great value for money, I love this wine. Crisp, fresh, elegant, subtle, mineral, zesty, with great acidity adding both intensity and tension to this great little wine. Lots of minerals, and a barely perceivable pinch of saltiness. I love this type of light and racy whites made between the mountains and the sea. So light, vibrant and refreshing. I could drink tons of this wine.
I used to buy and sell a lot of this specific wine when I was working as a "caviste" in the rich neighbourhood of Brooklyn Heights (NYC). It has been one of my favorite summer whites for nearly 2 decades.
(But, I must admit that I love mountainous whites from pretty much anywhere around the Alps, Northern Italy, but also Switzerland and France too of course, and Austria. Same around the Pyrenees too). 😋😁
****************************
Chateau Haut Bertinerie Blanc - Blaye, Cotes de Bordeaux, France 2018 (@chateau_bertinerie)
Grape Variety: 100% Sauvignon Blanc (old vines)
Price: €13-16 (HKD 120-150)
As I am from a little village located between the Côtes de Bourg and Côtes de Blaye, I was eager to taste this wine, as it is from the region where I grew up. And I know the red, but never tried the white before.
The colour was already light gold, (and much more pronounced than the previous 2 wines, despite the vintage), which is usually a sign of good intensity but could also be a sign that the wine has evolved already (not always a good thing for white Bordeaux, trust me on that).
Overall, medium to full-bodied, quite rich and generous, layered, nicely made and well balanced. Yet, it appeared slightly heavy for my taste/palate. Especially after drinking two rather dry and light wines, it almost tasted fruity sweet and very ripe (definitely heavier and fuller too). The oak treatment is noticeable, yet integrated, and add dimensions and volume, but also weight. Quite intense and fat.
It is a personal opinion, but it tasted more like a "wintery" white for me. Surely very comforting when it is cold outside, but definitely too heavy for my palate to really be enjoyed during the summer months, more especially with the heat and humidity here in Hong Kong.
I must be honest, it was not what I was expecting, yet, it is well made and tasty, and still, it remains a great value for money at this price. Consequently, my advice is: to drink it if you like a heavier style of whites, even during summer, or keep it in your cellar or wine fridge (or wherever you keep your wine) for the Fall and/or Winter, to be paired with white meat and creamy sauce, or a well seasoned roasted chicken.
That's all folks for today!
Thank you for reading my post, and until next time, be safe, take good care of yourself and give some love to each other, 'cause that's all we got!
Cheers! Santé!
LeDomduvin (aka Dominique Noel)
#lesphotosadom #ledomduvin @ledomduvin #casual #casualwines #sundaywines #friendsathome #crepes #wine #vin #vino #wein
All rights reserved ©LeDomduVin 2021 on all the content of this post above, including but not limited to: pictures, photos, drawings, illustrations, memes, texts, quotes, wines, wine tasting notes, wine descriptions, tables, graphs, etc...
No comments:
Post a Comment