One of the best things about living in the Northwest is the summer here, once it gets started. The weather and the opportunity to play in the outdoors is a tough combination to beat. I have a hard time leaving in the summer to go on vacation. My feeling is if you have to put up with the grey clouds and rain the rest of the year, you might as well stay for the dry 70 degree days and cool nights of July and August.
When people come to visit, showing them around my favorite places in the area is like a mini vacation without leaving home. A couple we met when we lived in Aiken, SC made the long journey to WA from Vernon France with their 3 children last week. While giving them the tour of Bellingham, we found some time to try some wine also.
Thursday, the day they arrived, happened to be our 21st anniversary. To celebrate, we drank a bottle of the NV Camille Saves Champagne Brut Grand Cru Rose while waiting for our guests to arrive. The grapes come from Bouzy, and the wine has a lot of pinot character with red strawberry fruit. Very dry and refreshing, nice balance and a little bit sauvage. Our friends arrived in time for dinner, and we had saved a glass of champagne to drink with dinner, a local Sockeye and potatoes and the last snap peas of the season from the garden. The copper colored champagne had enough body to hold up with the grilled salmon and purple Caribe potatoes we had with dinner.
For dessert we opened a bottle of the 2005 Francois Chidaine Vouvray Le Bouchet to drink with some cheeses. The grapes are from the Clos Boudin section of Vouvray, and are grown in clay and limestone soil. The wine is demi sec with light sweetness but good balance. Ripe pears, honeysuckle and chalky minerals that has a very mouth coating and viscous texture. Not sharp or high in acidity, but nice with the cheese.
A couple of local cheeses stood out, the fresh nettle Cherve from Gothberg Farms http://www.gothbergfarms.com/ in Skagit County was soft and creamy and a fantastic aged goat cheese wrapped in grape leaves from Sally Jackson http://www.sallyjacksoncheeses.com/ in Oroville WA. There was also an outstanding 1 year old Comte from the Jura. Benedicte tells me that it is best to get the 1 yr. old Comte in the summer, but the 6 month old one in the winter.
The next day we had the some cold Salmon in a garden salad with fresh tomato, shaved fennel, carrot, and cucumber with the 2006 Adelsheim Pinot Gris . Very perfumed nose, flowery with pear and apple fruit but enough cut to keep it from getting too weighty. A pretty good match with the salad.
For dinner that night we packed up and headed up the Nooksack River Valley to a cabin in Glacier WA. We grilled some tri tip steaks that had marinated in soy, olive oil, ginger, green onion and a little sesame oil. Michel wanted to try some American wines while he was here. Maybe a chance to compare the US with something from France. We ended up opening a 2004 Graillot Crozes Hermitage and the 2001 Edmonds St John Wylie-Fenaughty Syrah. It sounded like a great idea, but it really wasn't a fair comparison. The ESJ seemed closed to me, a little warm smoky syrah fruit but very tight. The Graillot really shined, with blackberry fruit, iodine, minerals galore, in a medium bodied package with lots of lift and ripe tannins that made it perfect with the grilled steak. I'm sure the Graillot will improve, but it is heard to imagine that I will enjoy it more in the future than how it tastes now.
The next day we went up to Artist's Point, at the end of the Mt Baker Highway. The road had just been cleared of snow the day before, and the parking lot was surrounded by 12 foot walls of snow. We hiked up Table Mountain for the panoramic view, and then the children went sledding and had a snowball fight. Not bad for the end of July. There was a heard of about twenty mountain goats on the Shuksan Arm. Dinner that night was at the North Fork, a place that advertises itself as a beer garden/pizzeria/wedding chapel. Lots of funky atmosphere, with a combination of locals and hippies living in the Nooksack Valley, bikers stopping in for some homebrew and pizza, and tourists. The homebrew is good, especially the Hefeweizen and the Porter. The pizza is excellent too.
Sunday we went kayaking in Bellingham Bay, and for dinner took a short ferry ride to Lummi Island to eat at the Willows Inn http://www.willows-inn.com. We sat on the deck and watched the sailboats go by between Lummi and Orcas Island. The Willows has a good wine list that combines WA state with some choices from France, Spain and S America. Some things on the list that caught my eye were Chidaine Vouvray, Clos Roche Blanche Cot, and Pepiere Muscadet. A mini Dressner outpost in the San Juans! We ordered a glass of a Chinook White Yakima Valley to start with, but I didn't catch the vintage. The owner thought it was a Sauvignon blanc Semillon blend. It started crisp and citrusy, but finished creamy and leesy and tasted like it had spent some time in oak. Not bad but not my favorite style. We ate some very good mussels in a Thai curry, and a olive goat cheese tapenade for appetizers. On Sundays the Willows has fresh (still alive in a cooler) spot prawns that they grill and serve with brown butter. We went with the 2005 Pepiere Muscadet Cuvee Eden to go with the prawns. The wine was very expressive, dry, refreshing, and minerally. It is closed with a normacork for those scoring. A bigger wine like a demisec Chenin blanc or even a California Chardonnay would have matched the rich sweet prawns, but the Muscadet cut through the flavors like a squeeze of lemon on a piece of fried fish. Fresh prawns on the deck, sunset over the San Juan Islands, and dinner with our friends, a perfect night. If you're in the area, I would highly recommended this place.
The last night before our guests headed north to British Columbia, we made some chicken with mushrooms and opened an Oregon Pinot Noir and a Burgundy to compare. The mushroom caps were quickly fried over high heat with whole garlic cloves and bacon, and then put under the broiler for 20 minutes or so to get brown and crispy. This went really well with the wines. The 2001 Belle Pente Wahle Reserve Willamette Valley OR and the 2001 Fourrier Gevrey Chambertin Aux Echzeaux were the two wines.
They both were a similar pale garnet color with slight bricking on the edge. The Belle Pente had red fruit, mostly bing cherry and a little brown spice. Later as it opened it showed some vanillin and a cooked fruit aspect. Very good acidic structure and I really liked the style of this one, except for the vanilla that crept in as it aired. The color also got darker with air. I would say this is ready to drink with short decant, but should be good for some time still. The Fourrier was pretty tight and taut and a little volatile at first. It seemed to have more earthy flavors, and the red fruit was more subtle. Really nice energy from the acidity in the middle and finish. My guess is this will be better with more time, and I'm not going to open my other bottles for a couple of years. My wife and I liked the Burg better and our French friends preferred the Belle Pente.
Osmond, the 10 year old visiting with our friends, made a Mousse au chocolate for our dessert. I watched closely while he was making this to pick up his technique. It was excellent. They grew up outside of Lyon, and are very familiar with wines from Cerdon. They suggested that the sparkling pink NV Bugey Cerdon From Renardat Fache would be a good match with the mousse, and it was. We drank to our time together, and promised to meet next year in France.
Thanks for reading,
Marc
