TN - viognier and goat cheese

Based on some hints here, I opened a bottle of Jewel 2004 Viognier and had it with shrimp and scallop crepes, and it worked out very well. This Viognier I thought was ok; I've had much better (that is, by themselves, but I've never found a good match for them). The pairing of Viognier with scallop and shrimp crepes (a cream sauce) however impressed me. With half a bottle left, I had salmon and lima beans, and that also was a nice match.

The surprise was today. A quarter bottle was left (I'm the only one that drinks, and I don't drink much at a time) and dinner tonight was shrimp with zucchini and tomato sauce.

Hmmm... I could try the viognier... I also had some cabernet (probably not a good match), gewurtztraiminer (definately not a good match), and a chard (with tomato?). Ideally I'd have chosen a syrah but I didn't have one open, and I had plenty of other wines which wanted drinking. So I thought I'd give the Vioginer a try.

It wasn't a disaster, but it wasn't inspring either. But Katie mentioned that she was thinking of adding goat cheese. Well that was the magic touch - the sweetness of the tomato, the softness of the goat cheese, and the mildness of the shrimp all combined to make a perfect foil for Viognier. (at least for this $9 bottle of Viognier). So, now I have a few other ideas on how to use this wine.

My rating on the modified Parker scale, from 1 to 100 (skipping the range from 50-70 and allowing double points in the range of 85-95) would be 87.3512, more or less. :)

Jose

Reply to
Jose
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Reply to
Joe "Beppe"Rosenberg

So dumb. Not only the pretentious extended fractional rating, but the concept of putting any evaluation at all on a cheap white wine that had been open a day. Yawn.

pavane

Reply to
pavane

It was a joke, son.

Jose

Reply to
Jose

Reply to
Marcello Fabretti

Not sure what Jewel Viognier is, but in my experience viognier, unless made by the best producers in an area that is well suited to viognier, can be a cloying heavy wine. I have never found a good one outside of the Condrieu area, honestly.

Regarding goat's cheese, I think that a good viognier would be too delicate for goat's cheese. It also depends on the cheesemaking technique, the lactic technique used industrially produces very acid cheeses, and viognier would have a hard time with that.

We are lucky in our area to have some goat's cheeses produced in the traditional technqieu using rennet, these cheeses turn out a little rubbery when fresh (a bit like industrial mozzarella), but within a few days they start to mature and go super creamy, literally ,elting off the table if you don't contain them... they also develop a very powerful yet pleasant taste, and they tend to go well with wines that are slightly oxydized, that have some "rancio", and definitely not a viognier (it would be completely overwhelmed).

I can see how a m,ilder goat cheese and shrimp would suit a viognier.

have fun

Mike

Reply to
Mike Tommasi
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We used to spend a month of the summer not far from Condrieu, in the Drome. I don't have a lot of experience with Viognier that I've liked much outside of the region, but I agree that a nice chevre is a great match. We used to do the old tomato-chevre thing regularly:

Summer tomatoes from the market; A fresh local chevre bunch of basil EVO (and lots of it), preferably from that little farm in the Baronnies Pepper and good fleur de sel Cut it all up on a big plate, serve with Baguettes not more than

1/2 hour out of the oven and bottles of nice chilled Condrieu, on the terrace in the sunshine with a view of the valley.

Heaven!

BTW, I suspect Pavane got your joke. :)

-E

Reply to
Emery Davis

It sounds wonderful, but...

what is EVO?

Jose

Reply to
Jose

I asked that question 2 years ago. Extra Virgin Olive Oil.

I always wonder about the use of this acronym. Consider that you can ONLY buy Extra Virgin, the other grades are not sold for export...

How about OO. Seems clear enough to me...

Reply to
Mike Tommasi

I can get plain (non EV) OO here. At least it isn't labelled EV. Never noticed the country of origin since I've never actually bought any so it may not be Italian. Possibly Spanish, Greek or US.

Andy

Reply to
JEP62

Probably US. It is hard to find anything but EVOO in the EU... ;-)

What is also funny is when you read on the label that the oil is cold pressed. There is no other way of making EVOO! Hot pressed OO is not fit for human consumption....

Reply to
Mike Tommasi

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