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Which Wines To Pair With Decorating? You Choose!

Which Wines to Pair With Decorating? You Choose!

I’m a little crazy about Christmas. My husband and I absolutely love the holidays and we decorate our house from top to bottom. We love to relish in the festivities of December and the holiday season, and with everything going on this year we’re determined to make our house provide us with lots of joy!

After bringing up all of the boxes of decorations, we pick out a gem of a wine (or two!) to enjoy while beginning the long (but fun!) process of turning our Florida home into a winter wonderland.

This year we started with my favorite beverage in the world: Champagne!

I opened a bottle of the Baron-Fuenté Grande Réserve Brut. This non-vintage sparkler is light gold in color and has wonderful richness with some brioche yeastiness, meyer lemon, red apple, peach and a lovely nuttiness. I’m a lover of Pinot Meunier (one of the three Champagne varietals), which provides great fruit characters. I really dig this wine and at about $35 retail, this is a great bang for your buck! Great Champagne at this price point makes me very happy!!!

While we were sipping Champagne, I was decanting a bottle of 2013 Gramercy Cellars Syrah “Lagniappe” from the Columbia Valley region of Washington state. Gramercy Cellars produces some of my favorite wines of Washington. After decanting for about two hours, we were ready to pour. On the nose are dark fruit, violet and pepper. The palate??? OLIVES!!!!!!!!!!! Oh, how I love the olive flavors I get on good Syrah! Along with the olives are some smoked meat, black pepper, baking spices, black cherry and blackberry. There is definitely a lot going on in this wine. No wonder I love Gramercy so much!

The Baron-Fuenté Grande Réserve Brut and 2013 Gramercy Cellars Syrah “Lagniappe” were a great way to START our holidays! I’m looking forward to what the rest of the season has in store for us!

https://gramercycellars.com

https://baronfuente.com/en

 

 

 

 

Romancing With Romorantin!

Romancing with Romorantin!

Have you heard of the Romorantin grape? It’s a white grape that has been grown in the Loire Valley since the 16th century. It makes a crisp wine that has great minerality and acidity. DNA profiling has determined it to be the offspring of Pinot Meunier (of Champagne fame) and Gouais Blanc (an ancient white grape rarely grown today).

The Cour-Cheverny appellation is situated within the larger Cheverny appellation, which is the most important zone in the middle Loire.  It was promoted to full Appellation Controlee status in 1993.  The wines made from Romorantin make up its own appellation (Cour-Cheverny) which is only about 48 hectare.

I’ve had wine from the Romorantin grape a few times now. Back in June of 2012, I wrote a blog about the 2007 Domaine des Huards Cour-Cheverny. At the end of that blog entry, I told you that if you had any in your cellar you should drink it up. I was wrong!!!!

A gal that works for Domaine des Huards sent me an email back in June of ’12, telling me that in fact Romorantin can be aged for 10, 15 and even 20 years without a problem and that it, in fact, gets better with age. I had one more bottle, so I held on to it. Boy, I’m glad I did. I opened it a few nights ago with my husband, and it is drinking beautifully!

In my initial blog, my tasting notes were pear, mango citrus, and almond on the nose, with some green apple and a bit of mushroom on the palate.

Fast-forward five and a half years, I now get melon rind, fresh spring pea, almond, and saline, which tells me that this wine would be a killer pairing with seafood as well as many types of cheese, salads, pasta with cream sauce, vegetarian dishes, and much more. The color is a gorgeous deep golden!

I like this wine more now than I did five years ago, and I liked it then too! So what do I wish? I wish I had a few more bottles of this wine in my cellar so that I could try it again in another five years!

If you’d like to learn more about Domaine des Huards you can check them out here: http://www.domainedeshuards.com/en

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