Wine tasting: Complices de Loire "La petite timonerie" Chinon (100% Cabernet Franc), 2013.

(For all the wine tastings I've done in 2016, click the "wine2016" label at the end of this entry, or just "wine" for all the writing I've ever done on the subject.)

Greetings again, my libatious friends! For those who need catching up, I'm a writer in Chicago, fulfilling a New Year's resolution to finally get better educated about wine, who has started the process by doing thoughtful tastings once a week of the world's 20 most popular types of grapes, doing the run chromatically from the heaviest reds (which I started right after New Year's in the middle of winter) to the lightest whites (which I'll be getting to at the beginning of May, just in time for the warm weather). So far this year I've now gotten through Syrah/Shiraz, Malbec, Cabernet Sauvignon, Pinot Noir, Chianti, Merlot, (Red) Zinfandel, Garnacha/Grenache, and Gamay; and that leaves only one red left in this series, the decidedly "Old World" (i.e. European) Cabernet Franc.

Much like last week's Gamay, this was not a type of wine I was very familiar with before going into this tasting series; but unlike Gamay, whose unfamiliarity is due to it instead mostly being known by the region most famous for it (Beaujolais), the reason Cabernet Franc is unfamiliar is that the vast majority of wineries grow it just as a stalwart grape to mix with others, not to bottle on its own and promote as its own varietal. (In fact, along with Cabernet Sauvignon and Merlot, this is one of the three grapes used for the famous Bordeaux blend of French red wine.) In fact, about the only place that still does so is the ancient Loire Valley region of France, which has actually been making wine since literally the birth of Christ, and in the Medieval Period was much more highly thought of than the upstart Bordeaux region. Reflecting its actual genetic relationship, Cabernet Franc grapes are much like Cabernet Sauvignon grapes in taste (sour/savory, unsweet); but much less intense in aroma, flavor, or its lingering quality, greatly helped by these grapes becoming ripe much earlier than most other reds, cranking up their acidity and thus their tart, citrus-like aftertaste (but see my detailed tasting notes below for more on that).

The winery I tried tonight, Complices de Loire, is based out of the village of Chinon which is considered Ground Zero for fans of Cabernet Franc wine, and actually buys their grapes from eight different respected vineyards around the region, instead of growing their own. (Interestingly, much like you usually only see in trendy New World wines, CdL gives fun little brand names to each of their wines, and makes a concerted effort to produce cool little hipster-looking labels; the wine I tried is known in English either as "Little Pilot" or "Little Wheelhouse," depending on which online translation tool you trust.) This is now my fourth Old World/European wine of this 2016 project (two from France, one from Italy, one from Spain -- and among the New World wines, one from Australia, one from Argentina, one from South Africa, one from Washington State, one from Oregon, and one from California), and while I can definitely see the argument that Old World fans make about why they're fans -- that European wines are more complex, more subtle, more nuanced, because of being grown in temperate regions around a lot of other produce whose traits they pick up -- in general I have to admit that I've liked New World wines much better, grown in hot environments that really cook those grapes and lead to these extremely bold tastes that can't be mistaken for anything else. It'll be especially interesting, then, to start the next educational project I'm doing after this one, where I'm going to spend the whole summer doing thoughtful tastings of as many different kinds of French wine I can get my hands on, literally the oldest of the Old World wines still made in the world, and that really puts the "sub" in "subtle and nuanced flavor."

Complices de Loire

“La petite timonerie” Chinon 2013 (100% Cabernet Franc)

Chinon, Loire Valley, France

12.5% ABV

$15 (Andersonville Wine and Spirits)

Look: Extremely light in color and texture, the closest I've gotten this year to a legitimately pink wine.

Smell: The same kind of sour/savory aroma as Cabernet Sauvignon, no wonder since these grape types are genetically related, but profoundly in intensity and how far the aroma carries across the room.

Taste: Light on the tongue but an extremely sharp and tart taste, so much like citrus that it makes my mouth water after swallowing, a bit to the wine's detriment if I'm to be honest. A flat-out unsweet taste that will turn off many casual drinkers, I now wonder if this is a reflection of all Cabernet Francs or just this particular brand. Would CERTAINLY go well with cheese or salty snacks, but I wouldn't necessarily recommend drinking it by itself or with a heavy meal like steak. (UPDATE: After further research, I've learned that a historically popular pairing in the Loire Valley is Cabernet Franc and goat cheese, which made immediate sense the moment I read it.)

After a Full Glass: After an entire glass paired with pasta in cream sauce, the more herbal/leafy tastes started coming out on the tongue, a good example of why Old World fans say that European wines have a more “subtle” and “complex” taste than currently trendy New World wines from hotter climates. Also, it was interesting to note after further research that Cabernet Franc is one of the few kinds of contemporary wine that will literally get noticeably better after storing it for ten or twenty years in a cellar; and that it's one of the few kinds of contemporary wine that legitimately gets noticeably better when pouring it into a decanter a full hour before serving. Talk about Old World!

New diet recipe and new wine tasting: Bacon-wrapped salmon steaks and Excelsior Cabernet Sauvignon.

(For all my 2016 wine tastings, click the "wine2016" label at the end of this blog, or "recipes2016" for diet recipes; or for all the writing I've ever done on the subject, click "wine" or "recipes.")

A special two-in-one post tonight -- a new diet recipe to share, and a new wine tasting that went with it! The recipe's actually really easy to describe -- simply wrap a salmon steak in a couple of strips of bacon, then broil for five minutes on each side, topped with whatever herbs you have available. It sounds indulgent, but it's only 133 calories, and is a luscious little dinner for those like me who are on a diet.

And to pair with it, a bottle of South African Cabernet Sauvignon! South Africa has a similar history to other New World countries like in South America and Australia; the wine-making tradition there actually goes all the way back to the 1600s, with the original establishment of the Dutch East India Company, but for centuries the wineries there mostly grew grapes considered crap by Europeans, for cheap consumption by local blue-collar workers. After the end of apartheid, though, and especially after the economic recession of the early 2000s, South Africa found itself finally on the receiving end of a lot of new attention from places like the US, and this was combined with South African vintners making a newfound dedication to such "noble" grapes as Chardonnay, Merlot and Cabernet Sauvignon, all of which benefit greatly (or so it could be argued) from the long hot days and short cold nights of these New World countries, which both ripens the grapes faster (leading to much bolder flavors than traditional European wines) and halts fermentation at night (leading to more acid in the wine, and hence a "crisper" taste).

Tonight's wine is from a tiny little winery in Robertson called Excelsior, which is actually a horse ranch as well, and has a Victorian mansion on the premises that's been turned into a 9-room inn with accompanying gourmet restaurant that tourists can stay at. Like many South African wineries, the estate was actually turned into an ostrich ranch in the 1800s, to feed the unstoppable Victorian craze for ostrich feathers; but unlike many of the others, Excelsior still continued to make wines that whole time as well, so survived after the ostrich feather boom was over, unlike most of the other ranches which went out of business. As far as I can tell, most of Excelsior's small output of wine is actually meant to be sold and drank at their on-premise inn, restaurant and deli, with only a small amount of it actually being exported through an "all tiny Cape Town estates" distributor they signed up with, which makes this a particularly delightful rare find here on the shelves of my local Whole Foods in Chicago.

(As you can see, I'm starting to build up a backlog of wines for the first time too, in preparation for my Friday night dinner parties that start on January 29th. I'll be doing them all year, so if you'd like to attend one, simply drop me a line at ilikejason@gmail.com and let me know.)

Excelsior Wine Estate and Manor Guesthouse

Cabaret Sauvignon, 2013

Robertson, South Africa

14.5% ABV

$10

Look: The darkest and most opaque wine I've had so far in 2016, with the strongest legs as well.

Smell: Very similar to the New World Shirazes and Malbecs I've tried this year too – a strong and intense aroma, heavily reflecting “not actually sweet sweet” fruits like blackcurrant, as well as what I've been calling in my head a sort of musty smell with some of the wines I've been drinking this year, which I just learned because of online reading is what others commonly refer to as a “oaky” smell, reflecting the oak barrels the wine was aged in before bottling.

Taste: This is a funny case of my initial thoughts exactly mirroring the actual situation; when I first tasted this, it occurred to me how this is just as strong a flavor as the Shirazes and Malbecs I've already tried in 2016, but how it's missing that kinda bitter, kinda “squeaky” feeling in the mouth that comes with the high tannins of dark reds (if you've ever left a bag of tea in your mug for too long, you know that sorta dry, squeaky feeling in the throat I'm talking about), and when visiting the winery's website I saw them talk about how they “rack” their wine twice a day (i.e. siphon it from one barrel to another to get rid of more and more sediment), specifically to lessen the tannin effect of dark red wines. (It's the skins of the grapes that contain all those tannins; the less the grape juice is exposed to these skins, the less tannins it has, which is why red wines always have more tannins than white.) The result is a powerfully dark yet extremely smooth wine, the first I've tried in 2016 that I can legitimately call “lush” without feeling embarrassed.

After a Full Glass: After an entire glass with a dinner of salmon steaks wrapped in bacon, I can see even more why getting rid of excess tannins might be so important to a dark red wine; for this mellowed and combined with my dinner in a way that none of the other dark reds I've tried this year have, a sort of wonderfully perfect companion to the salty, meaty treat of fish wrapped in bacon. An extremely pleasant wine, my first five-star rating of the year, and what I consider my first “hidden gem” among $10 wines I've now found*.

*And it should be noted that this is the very first wine of the year that I bought because of a recommendation from a wine clerk; specifically, a very outgoing Whole Foods wine buyer who asked if I needed any help when I was at the store today, which gave me the excuse to follow advice I read in one of my research books this year, to be honest with a wine clerk about what you already know instead of either trying to claim false modesty or put on airs. I told her that I'm a fan of dark reds, that I like New World wines, and that I didn't have more than ten bucks to spend; so based on this first interaction, certainly this confirms the advice you hear all the time in wine writing, that developing a relationship with your local wine clerks will get you access to amazing bottles you may have never heard of before.