2012 Pegau Cotes-du-Rhone Cuvee Maclura
Love Pegau-anything, and was surprised to find this rogue bottling I'd never heard of before at a little wine shop on Orcas Island last year. Chose it last night, a contrarian choice, to go with a Chinese chicken-and-vegetable stir fry. I say contrarian because, in my world, pinot/New world fruit is the obvious and best choice for Chinese, and a hearty Rhone red would be way down the ladder from there. But lately, I've been having fun deliberately choosing against type just to challenge norms.
It's not a big surprise that at most of the food I make and like, even when cooking ethnic, goes with most of the wine I like. But some matches, like this one, are almost shockingly good. Of course, it helped that I opened the wine first and took a small sip. Grenache-heavy (60%), with tons of pepper, and a good amount of earth from the syrah and mourvedre also in the blend. That one sip caused me to add a big wad of sliced celery to the stir-fry to enhance the herbal flavors plus fermented Chinese black beans to play into the earthiness. Too, I left out the ginger and doubled the garlic. The result was impeccable.
With that preamble, the wine: dark and inky in the glass, earthy nose with lots of black pepper, plummy fruit, roasted meat, bacon and a short, sweet flush of strawberry jam on the finish. Rustic, unfiltered mouthfeel. Good to the last drop, but the tannins turned parchy on the final pour indicating some change is around the corner.