French Wines

I stumbled upon a fellow blogger's entry about her Dream Vacation in Paris and thought, that's something I can afford. A dream about a vacation! It was a lovely entry, with great places and corners to visit, like the Medieval Garden.

So I'll share some notes about some recent French reds as I'm planning my dream vacation. As much as I'd like to tour the vineyards of France, I think mine would be to tour organic tea plantations of the world with a few stops at star observatories in Hawaii.

While I'm daydreaming maybe I'll make an investment in fractional real estate with a French vineyard........

Fantasies are so affordable!

.... and so are these reds....

Perrin Reserve Cotes du Rhone. $14.95 at the LCBO
The 2007 vintage gets 88 points from the Wine Advocate. "As proprietors of Chateau de Beaucastel in Chateauneuf-du-Pape, the Perrin family has demonstrated exceptionally high standards for nearly a century."
Deep red colour. Swirls nicely in the glass. It's dry, with a great aftertaste. Doesn't need a meal to feel complete, although I imagine it would go nicely with barbecue chicken. One of my regular stand-bys.

Calvet Saint Emilion Bordeaux $17.95 at the LCBO
I had this a few weeks back and liked it quite a bit. The aroma was my favourite part of the experience. Here is a bit more depth in the way of tasting notes from someone at cellartracker.com who gives this a score of 88
Color: Deep red. Nose: leather and minerality dominate with red and dark fruits. The smell is a bit green as well. Reminiscent of a Loire valley red. Flavor: Very tight and tannic yet, but showing alot of body and potential for development. The finish is long and gripping with strong tannins over the top of a vegetal back tongue. If you can put it away for a couple of years, this seems like a killer value for the price.

Madiran Laplace $14.95 at the LCBO
Red wine from Madiran "has a fearsome reputation. The wines are made from tannat, a red grape that's indigenous to Gascony and the foothills of the Pyrenees. Historically, Madiran was cruelly tannic (hence the name tannat) ... the Laplace brothers [Pierre's sons], together with cousin Patrick Ducournau, invented micro-oxygenation [which] involves the dribbling of small amounts of oxygen into fermenting wine, rounding out the tannins and promoting fruit flavours - in short, making Madiran softer and more approachable at an earlier age..." (Paul Huggett, gourmettraveller.com.au, Aug./Sept. 2008)