Shaheen's Famous Goat Cheese and LaPorte Sauvignon Blanc

My friend Shaheen, the Urban Goat Girl rocks! Her recent hobby, which I wholeheartedly applaud and sincerely hope she commercializes is organic, raw milk goat cheese. Elusive in this country but oh so delicious is fresh unpasteurized chevre. If this is danger, sign me up! BrixChick Janesta and I enjoyed not only a fabulous Brie, but also several chevres seasoned with lemon rind and pepper, garlic chive and cumin. I won' t mention the artisan bread. Okay, I will! It was halbweis, homemade and perfect!



Delicious!

To go with that, what would we pair but Sancerre? I needed to visit Solano Cellars to pick up some wine, so got an awesome recommendation to go with the cheese.

'08 Le bouquet de LaPorte, Sauvignon Blanc, Loire Valley

At $18.99 it was a treat from the Loire Valley that was as close to the Sancerre I craved as conveniently possible. Delicious! The freshness and brightness of the wine meshed insanely well with the cheese. A very clear, pale yellow, the wine had a nice acidity and a lovely flavor and aroma. Lemon blossom, green leaves on the nose and lovely Sauvvy B charateristics on the palate. It was good on its own, but gr88888t! with the cheese. We thought of our friend @WineInkbyTia whom we knew was traipsing through the Loire, while we contented ourselves with the product of the Loire and of our delightful Urban Goat Girl friend, Shaheen!

Look at the paste she got on her brie! Yum!

Wine Blogging Wednesday #62: "You say Mourvedre. I say Monastrell" A Grape by any other name.....

The BrixChicks deep love for all things Mourvedre is no secret. So for this Wine Blogging Wednesday challenge, of course we go for a grape with many names, but all with deep color and changeable nature. Since I adore Monastrell from Jumilla, I was happy to try a Monastrell from Alicante and compare it to a "local" Mourvedre; another favorite "River of Skulls". Xandria and I completed this exercise together so I also got to sample her French Mourvedre.

But first a little about Monastrell. I thought it had three names, Monastrell (Spanish), Mataro (Italian) and Mourvedre (French) , but who knew the actual list of names makes it sound like a trendy street drug: "Other names include Alcallata, Alcayata, Alicante, Arach Sap, Balzac, Balzar, Benadu, Beneda, Beni Carlo, Berardi, Bod, Bon Avis, Buona Vise, Casca, Catalan, Cayata, Caymilari Sarda, Charnet, Churret, Damas Noir, Drug, English Colossal, Espagnen, Espar, Esparte, Estrangle-chien, Flouron, Flouroux, Garrut, Gayata Tinta, Karis, Maneschaou, Marseillais, Mataro, Maurostel, Mechin, Monastre, Monastrell Menudo, Monastrell Verdadero, Mourvedre, Mourvegue, Mourves, Murvedr Espar, Negralejo, Negria, Neyron, Pinot Fleri, Plant De Ledenon, Plant De Saint Gilles, Reina, Ros, Rossola Nera, Spar, Tintilla, Tire Droit, Torrentes, Trinchiera, Valcarcelia, Verema, Veremeta, Vereneta" this from Information and Coordination Centre for Biological Diversity (IBV) of the Federal Agency for Agriculture and Food (BLE), Deichmanns Aue 29, 53179 Bonn, Germany. http://www.genres.de/idb/vitis/.

I have been most familiar with those Monastrells from Jumilla who bring with them a dusty cocoa blackberry delight, which is similar to the Contra Costa examples I have had as well, so I was also curious to see what differences I would find.

The wine I tried was :

'06 m2 Monastrell, Vinos Sin Ley, Alicante, Spain

The producers goal is to bring fresh modern wines to the market at exceptional prices. At $10.99 for this offering, winemaker Salvador Poveda is doing a nice job. It is a very opaque, dark red wine. The initial nose was banyardy, almost tarry. While the blackberry was prominent, it was more like blackberry cigarettes, with a strong mixed berry component to the aroma. The flavors had a lot of fruit, blackberry and fruit leather flavors with white pepper flashing in the mid palate. As it opened up, it was smoothed out but initially there seemed to be stronger alcohol that the 14.5% listed. All in all, this wine had great QPR and was the most likely to me to be a good tapas wine. I was curious how cool Alicante was compared to Jumilla, but could only drill down that the m2 came from "Zone 8". It was bottled in Monovar in the center of the DO, so perhaps there is a cooling breeze that brings out so much more spice than fruit?

We busted out all the peppers to do an impromptu drill down on the peppery notes. Was it red peppercorns? Green? Black? White? Grains of Paradise? Sumac? Thyme? Lavender? Rosemary? Definitley white. With a little anise as well. Then we read the instructions again, and the suggestion to compare with a more familiar/local version of the other name jumped out and Xandria got me to open a

'06 River of Skulls, Twisted Oak, Calaveras County, $35

This was much more my style. It came out a lovely ruby color and though the bottle indicated 14.7% alcohol, it did not burn my nose as the Spanish (and French) offerings did. The nose had blackberry, cedar and a generous dollop of oak. When I said , "like a walk toward the beach in Bolinas," Xandria snarked, "that's a nice way to say: Lots of oak!". I loved it. And it was the third wine I poured and the first glass I finished. Mixed with a little Syrah, it had gorgeous fruit flavors (but no chocolate). The fruit came from the Dalton Vineyard in Calaveras County and guess what? They too call it "Monastrell"!

Paired with a delicious porkchop, polenta, fresh Chanterelle mushrooms it was a very fun Wine Blogging Wedensday! Thanks, Dale Cruse, for an interesting exercise!

"You say Monastrell I say Mourvedre" Wine Blogging Wednesday #62 - Part 2

Monastrell, Mourvedre, Mataro, oh my!

For this tasty little assignment the Brixchicks chose Monastrell,one of their favorite varietals, which we discovered has several aliases other than Mourvedre and Mataro*. It is true that we drink a lot of Monastrell from Spain (especially from Jumilla) and Mourvedre from California so I thought it was high time to taste Mourvedre from France. We gathered the wines a did a vertical tasting of: the the 2006 La Bastide Blanche from Bandol ($24.99), the 2006 M2 Monastrell from Alicante, Spain ($10.99) and the 2006 "River of Skulls" Mourvedre from Twisted Oak of Calaveras County, CA ($30.00.) I concentrated on the Mourvedre from France.

I searched high and low for a 100% Mourvedre which proved difficult as it is normally used for blending with other Rhone varietals (ie; Grenache, Syrah, Cinsault) to make Chateau Neuf de Pape from the South of France and other various Southern Rhone blends.

Through my thorough research I finally found the 2006 La Bastide Blanche from Bandol. Mourvedre is the most common red grape from the Bandol AOC, or wine region, which is situated near the Mediterranean Coast just east of Marseille in the region of Provence. The Mediteranean climate is perfect for the Mourvedre grape which takes a long time to ripen. Most winemakers in Bandol make blends of mostly Mourvedre. In fact, La Bastide Blanche uses at least 75% Mourvedre, according to the folks at K&L Wines, and is blended with Grenache, Cinsault and Carignan. So I was hoping this wine would give a good idea of how French Mourvedre expresses itself.

Mourvedre produces a dark, dense, intensely perfumatic wine. This Bandolian Mourvedre is the color of the darkest rubies. As soon as I poured it into the glass my nose was assaulted by the aromas of cassis and anise with underpinnings of tobacco,blackberry and cranberry. At first the tannins were overpowering but they smoothed out as I drank more. I got tangy cranberry and notes of black pepper on the palate. It is an elegant, balanced wine and not one element really stood out. Liza thought this would be the most "food-slutty" wine and it was a nice accompaniment to the fresh chanterelles she brought from Seattle.

For Liza's reviews of the Monastrell and Ca. Mourvedre go to: http://www.brixchicks.com/2009/10/wine-blogging-wednesday-62-you-say.html
In summary the Mourvedre from Bandol is like the elegant, well-dressed cousin of the complex, brooding, chain-smoking Spaniard M2 Monastrell while the River of Skulls Mourvedre is the fruity, California party-girl of this trio. One grape such different wines...

*For the other obscure names for Monastrell/Mourvedre please read Liza's post if you haven't already.