What is your favourite French wine and grape ??

[mint]

[quote user="Loiseau"]NormanH wrote the following post at 13/07/2013 17:15: I imagine that this is a favourite breakfast treat  chez Les Oiseaux after a night on the nest... http://nakedveglunch.blogspot.fr/2011/06/red-wine-baked-breakfast-bananas.html Hmm, not as appetising as a standard banana, Norman...[/quote]

What, Loiseau, do you mean that they have finally managed to "standardise" bananas in the EU?  Same as for sausaages or something along those lines?  Are they allowed to have a bend in them or have they genetically modified them so that they are dead straight?

[Alan Zoff]

Regardless of the advice of TV chefs and the like, wishing no doubt to justify their fancy restaurant prices, pouring expensive wine into cooking pots is just never going to happen in this household.

When winemakers list advice on how to serve their wines at their best, they tend to say things like chilled for whites and room temperature for reds - God knows what happens to those subtle differences that justify the high price tag when your Chateau wotsit is boiled up with meat and vege.

[Russethouse]

[quote user="sweet 17"]

[quote user="Loiseau"]NormanH wrote the following post at 13/07/2013 17:15: I imagine that this is a favourite breakfast treat  chez Les Oiseaux after a night on the nest... http://nakedveglunch.blogspot.fr/2011/06/red-wine-baked-breakfast-bananas.html Hmm, not as appetising as a standard banana, Norman...[/quote]

What, Loiseau, do you mean that they have finally managed to "standardise" bananas in the EU?  Same as for sausaages or something along those lines?  Are they allowed to have a bend in them or have they genetically modified them so that they are dead straight?

[/quote]

LOL.......:-)

[YCCMB]

[quote user="Alan Zoff"]Regardless of the advice of TV chefs and the like, wishing no doubt to justify their fancy restaurant prices, pouring expensive wine into cooking pots is just never going to happen in this household.

When winemakers list advice on how to serve their wines at their best, they tend to say things like chilled for whites and room temperature for reds - God knows what happens to those subtle differences that justify the high price tag when your Chateau wotsit is boiled up with meat and vege.[/quote]

Well, quite simply, one of the issues in how much tannin is in the wine and what becomes of that tannin when a wine is reduced. And, of course, the difference between taste and flavour. That's basic food chemistry.

[dwmcn]

Betty,

My homemade elderberry is quite nice. Good enough for cooking with any time.

Calling something crap isn't rude?

David

[YCCMB]

I bow to your superior knowledge in matters of elderberry wine and etiquette. Of course a member of the Stevenage wine appreciation club should be deferred to in both matters. You are completely correct. About everything. And at least I had the manners not to type the offending word in full, or to tell someone else that their comment was rubbish. But the fault is all, entirely, mine.

[Russethouse]

I'm amazed anyone who is happy to buy wine in boxes is a member of any Wine Society......and come to think of it I doubt there is much in the way of boxed wine that it is too good to use in cooking , in my experience much of it is. perfectly decent, but very little exceptional.

Each to their own I guess......

We like Merlots for reds, and usually wine from the Loire region for whites

[Alan Zoff]

It would be interesting - well, moderately, perhaps - to see a controlled blind tasting where a cook has used drinkable but cheap wine in one pot and a premier cru in another (otherwise same ingredients and using same basic type of wine, of course).

I would put money on experts being unable to identify one from the other for anything but the lightest dish.

[YCCMB]

I doubt anyone in their right mind would use a premier cru, but there is a happy medium. As a non drinker of wine, I can certainly taste a rubbish wine, especially one with a lot of tannin, when it has been used for cooking. But then, as I said previously, there's so much pretentious gobbledygook spoken about wine that I'm certain most people who are talking it aren't necessarily using the traditionally accepted orifice.

[Alan Zoff]

Yes, I meant to put Grand Cru but then I'm not a member of a wine club....

[Alan Zoff]

I would add though that a high tannin wine does not mean it's a rubbish wine. Quite the contrary in many cases. So the tannin level is a matter of preference rather than cost.

[Tom]

Useful tip from Nigella. She recommends freezing leftover wine for cooking purposes.

 http://www.nigella.com/kitchen-queries/view/Freezing-Wine/2349

[YCCMB]

[quote user="Alan Zoff"]I would add though that a high tannin wine does not mean it's a rubbish wine. Quite the contrary in many cases. So the tannin level is a matter of preference rather than cost.[/quote]

But chemically speaking it makes a helluva difference in cooking! Too much tannin added to food can make it taste truly horrible.

[Alan Zoff]

Which would be the case whether it was an expensive high tannin wine or a cheap one

[YCCMB]

[quote user="You can call me Betty"]As a non drinker of wine, I can certainly taste a rubbish wine, especially one with a lot of tannin, when it has been used for cooking. [/quote]

Is what I said. I did NOT say that only cheap wines have a lot of tannin. Unless I can't even read my own posts...[8-)]

[Alan Zoff]

Making slightly different points. Mine was simply that expensive wines are wasted when used for cooking.

[SC]

I would love to be a wine snob, but unfortunately my budget doesn't stretch to it, and, on the occasions when I've pushed the boat out I've been dissapointed with what I've bought.

I like ordinary minervois because it reminds me of the carafe wine served in cafes and restaurants when I first travelled in France and a bottle of Kronenburg sometimes brings back the same memories.

In principle, every dish has a perfect wine, and I've been lucky enough to experience this on two occasions, neither at my expense. When this happens, it should be as obvious as it was to me. The combination of the two is simply greater than their sum.

I would never cook with a wine that I couldn't drink without wincing, an acidic red wine will ruin the intended flavour of a boef bourgignon for example. One case where the taste of a wine used in cooking is very obvious is with mussels in muscadet. If you can find a wine with a really strong muscadet flavour then the briefly cooked sauce will be so much more delicious.

I've been enjoying serving Coteaux de Layon with strong blue cheese (and deserts) recently - it doesn't have to be an expensive one..........

Steve

[dwmcn]

AZ,

I saw some people judge various priced roast chickens on a cooking program. Rick Stein (I think) embarrassed himself by picking the cheapest one as the best.

Why do wine snobs like Oz Clarke and Jilly Goolden always taste blackcurrants, gooseberries, strawberries, hay, grass, etc, in wine, but never grapes? 

David

[dwmcn]

AZ,

Oi, you making fun of us Wine Society members? OK, it's actually my wife, the snob. She could put your name forward if you'd like...

David

[Clarkkent]

I, too, am a member of The Wine Society, I bought a share for £10 about 40 years ago, when I was naïve enough to believe that wine appreciation was the front door to social respectability and that a van, bearing the Society's logo, delivering a box to my home would impress my neighbours.

As the years passed I realised that neither of my beliefs was justified and that, although I do not dislike wine, it is no great importance to me and something which I do not miss if I do not consume it.

I have long realised that The International Exhibition Co-operative Wine Society (to give it its full name) is just another mail order retailer.

[SC]

[quote user="dwmcn"]

Why do wine snobs like Oz Clarke and Jilly Goolden always taste blablcurrants, gooseberries, strawberries, hay, grass, etc, in wine, but never grapes? 

[/quote]

They're not wine snobs they're wine writers and broadcasters who have become successful at what they do and they taste the fruitiness in wine because it is there and it helps them describe the taste to their audience. One may not like them any more than one likes Jeremy Clarkson, however they've certainly done better within their chosen metier than most of us....

Have a look at some wines at around 3 euros on French supermarket shelves, many of them will have similar descriptions on the label together with their food associations.

I like "blabcurrents" by the way, fuel for talking heads!

Steve

[dwmcn]

Clark,

Somebody bought our share for us. Have you never been to Stevenage or Montreuil? You can buy wine and other things and go to pricey meals/parties  at both places. I guess it helps to live in St Albans, which isn't to far from Stevenage. Make sure you order your boxes during a slow season or they might get delivered in a plain white, non-Society, van. We get bricks through our front window when the lovely burgandy Society van arrives. I assume you get the Society News and magazines. We just got the Summer one.

PS I come from where Superman was 'born', Cleveland, Ohio.

David

[dwmcn]

SC,

I enjoyed Clarkson and Clarke (I think it was) (probably James May)  visiting wine areas in France.

We used to buy cubitainers, but now buy boxes because the wine doesn't go off as quickly. We also buy 3-4 euro bottles and boxes of six bottles at three for the price of two, but don't read the labels.

Going out to pick some raspberries. Ours have a hint of strawberries and redcurrants.

David

[Rabbie]

[quote user="dwmcn"]

Going out to pick some raspberries. Ours have a hint of strawberries and redcurrants.

David

[/quote]You really should keep them separate if you dont want hints of other fruit[:D]

[woolybanana]

Well, what wine does one like? It has to be red, taste smooth, not like old tyres, tannin free, not bitter or taste like soil, fruity is acceptable, not syrupy, but distinctive. Most recently the s'market had a decent, cheapish  claret,  that I guzzled down. And now it is gone so one must search some more.

What I miss in France are non-French wines, particularly a decent Italian selection.

Wine clubs are a bit like upmarket tupperware or underwear parties - either you belong or you don't and I definitely don't. Each to his or her distinction!