TN: Good Coudoulet,Castillon,St.Jo,budget Sauvignon & Cahors

Touraine Sauvignon Domaine de la Charmoise 2010 – Henry Marionnet – Alc.12.5% - €3. This is the entry white in the Marionnet range and IMO shows much less personality than its Gamay equivalent - <€6. It was quite soft on the entry with pleasant gooseberry tinged green fruit, slightly hollow in mid-palate with a smoky finish - but no new oak here. The overall impression was a little bland and others, e.g. Chidaine, do much better with Touraine Sauvignon but certainly not at €3; 14/20 QPR.

Château Cap de Faugères Côtes de Castillon 2002 – Guisez – Alc.13.5%. This was an enjoyable Merlot 85% right-banker. It was medium bodied with nice round red fruit without any jamminess and built up to a finish with enough grip and firmness in ripe tannins for good support; 15.5/20+.

Côtes du Rhône Coudoulet de Beaucastel 2001 – Pierre Perrin – Alc.13.5%, made from Mourvèdre and Grenache 30% each with Cinsault and Syrah 20% each. This was quite similar to my memory and notes of the excellent 1998 a year ago but fresher. It was medium/full full bodied, bright and harmonious in character with good acidity and lively plum fruit combined with herbs and touches of leather and tar and decent structure; 16.5/20.

Saint Joseph Clos de Cuminaille 2001 – Pierre Gaillard – Alc.12.5%, 100% Syrah. This was an excellent St.Jo probably at its peak with medium+ body with very nice quite round red fruit with lively acidity, the usual steely cherry component, flinty minerals and some forest floor creeping in leading to a nicely firm finish; 16/20+.

Cahors 2004 – Château Haut-Monplaisir, Cathy et Daniel Fournié - Alc13.5% - c.€7; this is the entry level cuvée with 100% Malbec. I chose it to accompany a cassoulet of duck, sausages and beans in the typical regional sauce. The wine surprised me by holding up very well in spite of the sauce’s being surprisingly sweeter than I was expecting. It was medium+ bodied with some nice savoury red fruit, minerals and an attractive leathery note and a typically Cahors austerely grippy finish; 15.5/20+++ QPR!.
(The mystery of the sweetness of the sauce was revealed when the chef admitted that she had mistaken some brown sugar for dried bread crumbs to sprinkle on the top of the cassoulet! )

(The mystery of the sweetness of the sauce was revealed when the chef admitted that she had mistaken some brown sugar for dried bread crumbs to sprinkle on the top of the cassoulet! )

Nooooooo! It would be something that took all day to cook! And I LOVE cassoulet.

My dear wife once caused me to experience similar culinary misfortune. I was making a savoury terrine that required some bread crumbs. Unknown to me, SWMBO had seen fit to turn some stale Amaretti biscuits into crumbs and put them in the place reserved for dry bread crumbs. It was not one of my star moments in terrines!

BTW, the Coudoulet has always been a very decent value, but now when it costs locally around $35 (2007 vintage) it is looking much less so.

That Cahors sounds good, Tim, and a worthy companion to the inadvertently sweet cassoulet.

[Jenise]

Tim, we had that same '01 Coudoulet last night with a lovely plate of Shrimp and Grits. I was going to post a TN on it but now I'll just respond to yours! We enjoyed it a great deal, but I think our bottle was a bit more mature than yours. Nice as it was, I'd judge it to have been better about a year ago. Just bottle variation, I think; I have another bottle or two and its reassuring to think based on yours that I might not need to rush to finish them.

Tim, we had that same '01 Coudoulet last night with a lovely plate of Shrimp and Grits. I was going to post a TN on it but now I'll just respond to yours! We enjoyed it a great deal, but I think our bottle was a bit more mature than yours. Nice as it was, I'd judge it to have been better about a year ago. Just bottle variation, I think; I have another bottle or two and its reassuring to think based on yours that I might not need to rush to finish them.

I like the Shrimp and Grits part too.

[says a boy who can't quite shuck the Deep South/Tidewater out of his soul, especially when it comes to damned good food]

Do you use more of a Creole or more of a Cajun approach to your shrimp and grits, Jenise?

[Jenise]

Do you use more of a Creole or more of a Cajun approach to your shrimp and grits, Jenise?

I'm a neophyte, never made the dish before and I've only had it a few times in my life. The first was at Magnolia, a restaurant in Charleston, and the second (well, and third, fourth and fifth or so) here in Bellingham at a restaurant whose chef cooked, in his time, for Emeril at the Commander's Palace in New Orleans. It's on his appetizer list and I'm addicted to it, I can't go there without ordering it. The two versions were/are both excellent but radically different. So I struck out on my own thinking Creole, following my own instincts and not someone else's recipe and yet as I cooked found myself leaning Cajun. Loved what I made, but the sauce needs more refinement. What doesn't, what was absolutely perfect, were my grits. That reminds me, I need to start a grits thread!

Do you use more of a Creole or more of a Cajun approach to your shrimp and grits, Jenise?

I'm a neophyte, never made the dish before and I've only had it a few times in my life. The first was at Magnolia, a restaurant in Charleston, and the second (well, and third, fourth and fifth or so) here in Bellingham at a restaurant whose chef cooked, in his time, for Emeril at the Commander's Palace in New Orleans. It's on his appetizer list and I'm addicted to it, I can't go there without ordering it. The two versions were/are both excellent but radically different. So I struck out on my own thinking Creole, following my own instincts and not someone else's recipe and yet as I cooked found myself leaning Cajun. Loved what I made, but the sauce needs more refinement. What doesn't, what was absolutely perfect, were my grits. That reminds me, I need to start a grits thread!

Interesting. I guess I should have mentioned as an arguable style the Carolina/Tidewater/Low Country Cooking style...which is I think probably closer to Creole than Cajun. I think a Shrimp and Grits, or just a grits thread on FoodLovers would be great. The other all time classic New Orleanian grits dish being Grits and Grillade, a great NO hangover breakfast.

[Jenise]

Interesting. I guess I should have mentioned as an arguable style the Carolina/Tidewater/Low Country Cooking style...which is I think probably closer to Creole than Cajun. I think a Shrimp and Grits, or just a grits thread on FoodLovers would be great. The other all time classic New Orleanian grits dish being Grits and Grillade, a great NO hangover breakfast.

What I had at Magnolia was definitely neither Creole nor Cajun; in fact the closest thing to it I've had was a She-Crab soup we enjoyed at another excellent Charleston restaurant and probably because of the liberal use of cream which I loved indulging in but wouldn't make that way myself.

Grits thread started. Please join in.