Any wine suggestions for this menu?

snipped-for-privacy@hotmail.com wrote in news:1102885816.512144.285040 @f14g2000cwb.googlegroups.com:

Chenin Blanc Vouvray or Montlouis? AlRiesling

jcoulter wrote in news:Xns95BDBB59424D4225stellar@216.196.97.136:

Chablis, Premier Cru at best

With herbs de provence I am thinking something like a CdP or a Gigondas in any event 5-8 years old '99 perhaps.

Rastau vin doux naturale

-with the Foie Chenin Blanc Demi Sec for example: anything from Vouvary or older Savienerres

-with the fish Chardonnay without too much oak. Navarro Vineyards from CA for example

-with the lamb Langeudoc Red Wine.

-with the cheese Old world Pinot Noir with a little bit of bottle age

-with the chocolate Mas Amiel Banyuls

Feiler-Artinger Pinot Cuvee Ruster Ausbruch 2001, Austria. You should be able to find this at better wine shops- or the 1999 Welschriesling Ruster Ausbruch from the same winery. If that's too decadent to launch your evening, then go with a great Riesling and serve the Feiler-Artinger with the dessert. e.

Don't go too sweet. While Sauternes can match well, it canm also overwhelm. Look to an Auslese or even Spatlese Riesling, or as has been suggested, a soft Loire

Mirroring the sauce is usually a good idea. If you want a break from over-oaked, often one-note American chards, try something like the Montes Alpha from Chile.

Lots of choices here - American Cab, Bordeaux, Rhone.

Bigger red or a Port

Forget about wine (you'll kill just about anything with the chocolate, although there are people that rave about chocolate and red wine. But then there are people that would eat choclate with sawdust, so....) A nice espresso would be the thing.

Ever tried Maury? That's far from sawdust, I can assure you! Oxidised wines go well with chocolate too, I had some excellent matches with old-style Tokaj, and with Madeira.

M.

Vin jaune, so I am told, is worth trying...

Mike Tommasi, Six Fours, France email link

I find sawdust way too oaky ;-) I'd have to have Bordeaux somewhere in this meal, and would rather have Cab with the lamb, thus leaving this course open for the Bordeaux. A 1998 Pomerol (such as La Pointe) would go very well with chocolate!

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Ah Michael - do you really feel that they are left untouched by the chocolate?

IMHO, any wine will be altered by drinking it with chocolate, and the alteration will range from destroying the wine, to simply changing the wine, but not in a bad way - some Banyuls, for instance, work passably well with wine, as would some of the wines you suggest.

I'm not sure I've ever had a wine that was improved by chocolate, and the point is that it is hard to appreciate the wine once you dig into the cocoa. I suppose someone could say they preferred Ch. Latour with a bit of chocolate syrup, and for them that might be quite true, but they still wouldn't be appreciating the wine as it was.

That's the reason I always taste wine bot with and without food. Some wines work well with food, some don't. None that I have tasted actually benefit from chocolate.

Similarly, I have found a few wines that tolerate Sezchaun cuisine, but none that benefit from it.

I typically don't drink wine with cakes, chocholates, souffles etc....for some reason the wine does not compliment most desserts in my opinion.

I tend to like Coffees with dessert. Then I live an afterdinner drink with cheese course....Ports, Ice Wines...etc. Grand Marnier 150 Centaire etc.

Name-dropper!

I'm in total agreement with all. Chocolate is not a good wine accompaniment. Although I've found chocolate notes in many wines, most commonly merlot, I don't think that chocolate alone or in a decadent chocolate dessert are going to be helped by wines or vice versa.

But, I've enjoyed chocolate with port and Spanish brandies, which seem to have more chocolate tones than Cognac. My current default brandy is Cardenal Mendoza which is quite a bit on the sweet side and works well with chocolate (and in prior years before health reasons terminated my pleasures, with a fine cigar.)

A dark, aged rum might serve as well.

But, hold the wine until the cheese.

Ed Rasimus Fighter Pilot (USAF-Ret) "When Thunder Rolled"

Thanks for all of the replies. This group is full of good ideas.

I forgot about Vouvray, I think a nice Vouvray for the fois gras. The suggestion of a CdP for the lamb is good, but I'll serve a 1988 Pichon Baron which can carry through to the cheese course. The '88 Baron is drinking well now--I don't have any vintage CdP, and too little Hermitage for this dinner. I agree with the poster who recommended coffee with the chocolate. Banyuls works too, but it is alright to stop drinking at some point. There will be port with cigars afterwards. The fish can work with a Chablis, but who said nothing more than Premier Cru? If only I had magnums of Les Clos. Thanks again for the replies! You were very helpful.

Bill, we had an extended tasting a few years ago having some five or six dessert courses with some 30 stickies (we did that for an article for one of the magazines I write for, but I didn't write, I only helped). From what I do remember, the dark chocolate cake with chocolate sauce, combined with a 5- or 6-butt Tokaj and a 15 YO Madeira were just a revelation. We should try again!

M.

there's about 5 jokes on this running through my head (mostly zingers at Ian), butt I think I'll pass. Dale

Dale Williams Drop "damnspam" to reply

snipped-for-privacy@hotmail.com wrote in news:1103001809.891728.163010 @f14g2000cwb.googlegroups.com:

that would have been me. Grand Cru Chablis has a different mouth feel, at least to my perception, which I didn't see as working as well with the sauce.

I shall file that away and test it on SWMBO.

Of course she'd like anything as long as I served it with chocolate cake....

Sorry, did I mention I like Cafe Illy for my expresso.

Name dropper huh :-)