Did I lost my taste ability?

Salut mes amis! Ouais it has been again some time since I wrote and again it has been weeks of writing reports, working on the weekend and short I just simply crashed down into my bed in the evenings. The weekends, well, I stayed home and had skype meetings or home work to do. Not much time and also motivation to get closer to the keyboard. Plus, I was having the feeling over the last couple of weeks that I somehow have lost my taste ability for wine. Every wine that I bought (mostly from Argentina, Chile and France) tasted for me the same - no taste at all!

Try to imagine a French guy that lost its tasting ability.... freaking scary - and that is mildly put -. So it was kinda down feeling for me, while having so much to do and then the only enjoyable relaxation together with a nice dish seemed to be taken from me, until I figured out what seemed to be the problem for me.

 

I remember that last during summer last year, when visiting my dad, we encountered a similar problem. Some of the wines we had purchased seemed to apparently take days until we could taste something from them. The reason for this is that a wine is in general a reductive solution. By means that every compound within it has a reductive ability. If you normally would like to taste something you should give it some time to breath, so that oxygen can enter the wine and react. Reductive agents on the other hand react with oxygen (preferably) and bind it. In this way, the wine's oxygen level remains low which is favorable that mircobes cannot grow and spoil the wine, plus an reductive solution reacts with a lot of different things (e.g. parts of the mircobes, which leads to their death), even the compounds within the wine and leading to a specific development of it over the years.

But coming back to the reason of the reductivity of the wine. Basically, the wine is becoming reductive by its fermentation process. Since the beginning until today, sulfate was added to the wine at the end of fermentation process. Adding sulfate results in a kill of all microorganisms (also stops the fermentation therefore) within the wine and makes it reductive. So whats the problem now? Mhm... just simply that the fermentation process of wine making hasn't changed very much over the last hundreds to thousands years, just that the equipment became better and everything is quite more under control when making wine, which in some way - I am lacking here some background - leads to an higher reductivity of the wine before reaching the end of fermentation.

In short the wine needs even longer periods of time in order to develop its aroma and its unique taste. And apparently there seems to be a contest between different wine makers - my impression - of who can make the wine more reductive. As an example, an open wine from Argentina took more than 3 days at room temperature to lose so much of its reductivity until I was able to taste the flavour.

 

The conclusion for me now is, that in the future I have to figure in advance which wines need more time before I can offer them to friends or even enjoy for myself.

 

Okay, thats it mes amis! Hope to be write a new post in a couple of weeks again!
Take care and enjoy spring! :)

 

 

Glycerol - a taste smoother

Salut les gars!
How was your last week? Mine was pretty busy and I am so happy to have now a weekend of rest and some peace, even though I was planning to spend some time with friends together, but health is sometimes more important so I slept pretty well and late. Now I am refreshed for another post again! The sun is shining outside finally again in Finland and before jumping off and enjoying a nice walk in it (with all the snow around glimmering and shining) I remembered I promised to post something about glycerol! :D

When presenting you last time the wine I found - La Jasse Castel - I mentioned about the glycerol content of the wine. Mais (French word for "but"), what does this actually means, what is it good for and why is it even in the wine??? All of them are good questions.

 

Glycerol is a product that occurs during the wine fermentation. It is basically produced as - let's just say - "side-product" of the yeast. While the yeast is performing the alcoholic fermentation a lot of different metabolic products are consumed by it and also produced. The average content of the glycerol within wine can vary and depends also on the yeast strain or starter cultures they used for the wine fermentation. Concerning the different yeast strains and how much they produce is one of the huge discussion topics if you happen to encounter a wine maker. Some of them say that the different yeast strains don't not significally increase or lessen the glycerol content when added to the wine. The average concentration that a yeast can produced ranges from - oh.....pfffff.... attend les gars je suis en train de me souvenir (what guys.. I am trying to remember it)... - 4.5 to 13 g/L less or more. But with the numbers I am not anymore so pretty sure, but it should have been in this range.

Glycerol chemical structure

Anyway, my personally impression is that the glycerol production of the yeast simply depends on the nutrition within the grapes juice. Therefore, it could vary from each year, as each year different weather and soil conditions impact the composition of nutrition within each grape. And yes it is highly possible that some yeast strains (Saccharomyces cerevisiae) might produce more, if I speak from my experience as biologist.

 

However, why is it important to have glycerol in wine? Basically, because glycerol is supposed to support the mouth feeling. I use the word suppose, because there is kinda of fierce battle between the people in the wine community about the importance of glycerol and effect towards the wine tasting and quality. Glycerol is for itself an odorless viscous liquid with a "sweet" taste. Therefore, some people tend to say it is not so important and has no overall contribution towards the wine in its taste and smell, cause this depends a lot on the different aromas and tannins within the wine. Other people again praise the glycerol in wine (some who are talking about Botrytis cinerea - a grapes pathogen, but also used for wines that have high sugar concentration such as dessert wines - more of that in my next post!) and so on.

If you ask me, it's kind of mixed thing. It's like I mentioned it very often: a wine is the sum of its compounds not of each single one! So therefore I see glycerol as a "transmitter/transporter" to be able to have a nice mouth feeling and start to taste the different aromas. (In terms of biology or chemistry I would consider glycerol - cause of its structure and some chemical properties - as a "carrier" for the aromas..... and yes some of the chemistry and biology people might shot me for this blurry and not 100% correct explanation. Just go with it, please. If I start here with an explicit explanation I will sit here and keep writing a book!) 

So could someone not just easily add some more glycerol to a less good vintage? Ouais, that is possible and I could assume some people did before analytic devices were used in the wine making and wine evaluation (to make competition and wine production that what it is: A summary of nature's gift and the talent of the wine maker).

 

Maybe you guys have now some kind of idea what glycerol is and why it is - that is for you to decide - important in wine. At least, next time you meet some into-wine-people you can talk with them about this and proof some info ;)

 

The curtain (left: after swirling, right: 8 secons later)
This wine was having less glycerol content

Just a tip on the way, you can also check the glycerol content of a wine by yourself. How? Pretty easy, but not like saying it has the following concentration of x g/L in it.
You simply swirl your wine glass and see how long the - let's call it - the "curtain" (sorry I don't happen to remember the correct term for it anymore!) stays on the glass (see pictures). The longer it stays on the glass, the higher the glycerol content is.

 

Bon les gars! I am off to enjoy the sun and later some good food and sauna! Have a relaxing and whatever you do nice weekend! :)

À bientôt

La joie de vivre! - Wine from the Montpeyroux region

 

Salut les gars! :)

Today I am happy to introduce you a very special wine I recently found in an Alko shop in Helsinki, which I even don't get so easily in France. As a matter of fact I have never seen or found this wine in a shop in France! One of the reasons I had never heard or seen this wine is, that it is quite a special one and not easily to be purchased, except if you purchase it from the winemaker directly or their website.

So I actually found the wine by accident when I was shopping in Helsinki and was already on my way back to the bus stop and passed a very small (and well hidden) Alko Shop on my route. It must have been at least a year since I happen to walk into this small one, but nevertheless after a minute I already found the treasure (okay it was THE wine, but hey it really was and is a treasure for me to find it! ;D )

Eh ben, you might wonder what is so special about this wine, well for this a small back draft in time.... I don't remember if I mentioned it in one of my blogs before, but once in Autumn 2010, somewhere in the mountains of Pont-en-Royans at a renovated house that used to be an old farm house (but still possessing its special charm), I was introduced into a new wine I had never heard of before. It was already dark and kind chilly outside, sitting on an uneven earthen terace with some candles put onto old wine bottles to illuminate it a little bit. The chairs we were sitting on were kinda old - but fortunate, mine was still stable - and used to make noises one and then when someone of us needed to replace the bottom a bit since these were not the most comfortable chairs to sit in. Still, it is and was what makes things in France so special for me. Everything doesn't matter as long as you have good company, something to drink and some appetizers to share with and enjoy the conversations without thinking about anything else than just to enjoy the moment (maybe thats one of the reasons why I love Finland so much, cause it is so similar, but I should stick to the story). So, while sitting in these chairs and enjoying the time, a friend of my father, Marco, brought some wine up from the cellar. It was a wine called: "La Jasse Castel". He opened the bottle and leaned himself over the table to pour the wine into all the glasses that were standing on the table. Also, this table was quite old and shaked occassionally on the uneven ground when you accidentially pushed it a bit too much. Luckily, we always catched our glasses before the wine intended to swap over the glasses - yeah French people are very skilled in this particular one! - What I experienced next, I will definitely never forget! I took a sip and after a few seconds I was mind-blasted away! What an extraordinairy wine! What an excellent bouquet and a nose.....ufff..... have you ever had a wine, that had a taste of roasted meat (smell and taste) while still being smooth and not to overwhelming with this taste so that other taste notes (e.g. berries) still were present. I never had this kind of alike one before! At that time I really just enjoyed it. Also, Marco was absolutely enchanted by this wine and told that he still hadn't figured out what kind of "meat" it could be that gives the wine this special taste. Actually, I told him that it tasted like kangaroo meat, which I had in that summer in Australia tasted. Awesome, awesome, awesome or bref: "Je crois au Dieu" (Phrase for something extraordinaire great: I believe in good).

 

So maybe now you understand why I was so happy to find this wine here in Finland! :D

When checking  later the winemakers website, I just realized that I actually hadn't purchased the same wine I had in 2010. From "La Jasse Castel" four different wines happen to exist. The one I had in 2010 was called "La Jasse Castel - La Jasse". The one I found was called "La Jasse Castel - LA PIMPANELA". Nevertheless, this one is also very special and great so I did not at all regretted to purchase the whole stock from Alko (don't get me wrong, they had ONLY three bottles left of this one and told me that they haven't had reordered it or might likely do it. Well, take a wild guess, if this wine is so special and not easy to get, who would wonder about!)

Anyway so now to the feedback of the wine.

 

Name: "La Jasse Castel - LA PIMPANELA"
Origin: Coteaux Du Languedoc - Montpeyroux
Vintage: 2010
Grape(s): Grenach & Syrah (please check the winemakers website to find more about these special grapes!)
Alcohol: 14,5 %
Price: 17,90 €
Shop: Alko
Personal rank: 8.4 of 10 points (10 points = best!)

Website: http://www.jasse-castel.com/

 

Color: Dark rubin one, close to dark and deep purple

Smell: Smokey, cranberries, dark cherries. Even tho 14.5% alcohol, the smell was not covered by it! 

 

Taste: Smokey, cark cherries, very nice aftertaste

 

Development:

~ 15 mins (after opening the bottle): The taste intensity of the berries becomes stronger

~ 35 min: the wine starts to open up more. More different aromas are appearing (had trouble to define them) 

~24h : Wine has become very smooth and all the aromas are quite balanced. The tannins cover of the aromas has lessened.

Tannin(s): A lot.

Food: Lamb steak, dark meat, potatoes, cheese. I would not suggest any white meat (e.g. chicken) as the taste of the chicken would not be competitive enough for the wine. Some berries as side-dish would be a nice complementation. 

 

Résumé:

An excellent wine. I am actually lacking words here. It is definitely a wine that can be stored a couple of years. Recommend to enjoy the wine with some good company. The high alcohol content is not disturbing or a hindrance for the taste and smell. Excellenter Glycerol content (will take about Glycerol and what it is and why it is important in the next upcoming post!) Suggestion to open up this kind of special wine - if possible - 24h before consuming and in decanter. Price absolutely acceptable for Finland.
I strongly recommend to taste this wine if you can find it! :)

Aeration of the wine

Salut!
A new post about a topic that I wrote once before: Aeration of the wine. Aeration is especially important for red wines as they need more oxygen to develop the aroma. In general white wine need also some aeration, but much less than red wine. Both are quite reduced (in terms of chemistry you can say reductive) solutions. However, the red wine needs more time to take up oxygen due to its tannins and aromas development, while the white wine's taste is based upon the different compositions of "fruity acids". Ouais (french commonly used word for "yes"), some of the white wine lovers would not agree with me on this 100% or even kick my ... oh well you know what... but hei, I have never considered myself a white wine expert! Bref, lets put it down with saying the longer the white wine remains oxygenized the faster the "fruity acids" and taste will get less intensive.
Okay, after a short recapitulation about a previous post, let's continue....ou j'avais la tête....öhhh... ah ouais! 

Aeration experiment

I was actually wondering how you guys could actually try the red wine development without having any of these fancy and often hellish expensive "decanters". Well, I tried something very easy and the results was quite satisfying: All what you need is 3-4 red wine glasses and a bottle of red wine -naturellement (french: of course)-. That’s it! The first glass will be filled, let’s say ~ 30% with red wine, then all the other glass will be filled 45-50% (depends where the surface of the wine will have the maximum capacity of obtaining oxygen). Then you swirl all of the glasses for a short bit (2-3-5 seconds) and start with the first glass that only 30% contains. Smell it, taste it. Put your hand around it and wait a while to warm it up and taste, smell and swirl it occasionally and see if it changes it taste.
While you taste glass no.1 the other glasses will have some time to development their aroma. Preferably you should start with the 2nd glass 15-20 min after opening up the bottle. When you start with the 2nd, again first smelling, swirling, smelling, tasting (actually the order of what you do: smell, taste or swirling can be up to you! Try and test it out!). The 3rd glass you can taste after you finished your 2nd (or if you are a little bit faster in enjoying the 2nd glass) like after 30-45 after you open the bottle.
Believe me, you will smell and taste the difference! :D And btw would be nice if you could give me your feedback about this by a comment below! ;)

And for the new post, which I already have in mind, I have a new wine to present. I was so super happy to find this one....why? Well, be ready for my next post ;)

À bientôt mes amis!

 

Awaking of the hibernation - reviving my blog

Me at the inner wall of Osaka castle

Salut à tous! (Hey everybody). My blog is back! So what the hell happened since the last post 9 months ago? Well, well, well, actually quite a lot. Too much to tell everything in detail, but it took me a while to figure a lot of things our personally and also I had just simply too much work to do and then most of the time was feeling too much crush than to be motivated and in the mood for writing a new post. I was afraid that the quality of my post would suffer, so therefore I took a short break... and yeah it became a longer one. Now I am feeling strong, encourage, motivate ...bla bla bla (long French sentences with loads of adjectives later).... I feel like a wine that had time to rest and mature. Period.

Kiyomizu-dera temple, Kyoto

Anyway now I am back! So what happened to me?

 

The short version:

 

1) Working quite much

 

2) Visiting Japan for a conference and for holidays (a dream that came true finally after 10 years of waiting! also meet a maiko and a geiko! awesome!) :D

 

Okonominyaki - food, awesome delicious

3) Read loads of books and had loads of wine's checked out for you! (Don't worry, I used the break wisley ;) I made pics and notes, just need to put them here!)

 

4) Working voluntary (became the new President of the new founded Leo Club Helsinki/UNLIMITED and at the same time Accommodation Manager for LEF 2013) (for more info about Leos and Lions Club International, please check the internet)

 

A temple in the royal place garden, Kyoto

5) Being the bride's Best man (okay yeah still its the Maid of Honor) of my two best friends. Yeah, that was quite work as well, but something that I didn't see as work, but it took quite much time for the wedding speech (ohlàlàlà, that was so emotional to write that thing and still tried to make it funny)! :D

 

6) Started to cook more intensivly fancy food and bref too many other details!

 

So after this short update about the events from last year that have influenced me quite much back to the writing.

For you guys important to know concerning updates: I won't be able to guarantee you every week an update. If you are lucky and I have time you will get one, but I try to aim at least every two weeks to give you a new post. The posts will also become shorter, while trying to keep the quality of it high!

 

So thats it for today mes amis! À bienôt! :) ahhhh ca fait du bien d'être retourné (ah it feels good to be back!)

 

 

 

 

Tannins, polyphenolics, Yin and Yang

Hei, I have been busy again and it seems it won't get less in the near future. Anyway I am feeling much better since my last post even tho all the work. Its getting recently more and more Spring alike in Finland, which means more sun! Thats a good boost for a lot more work coming up and also encountering some more outside activities! YES!!

After I have been posting the last time always about some private stuff mixed together with some basic and advanced wine "wisdom" I think its time to go a little bit more into detail again. So today its all about tannins.

What the hell are tannins? Some of you might know what it is or from where they come from, others might just wonder cause all the time tannins is somewhere written on a bottle and so whatever. Then again other associate headache with tannins. Yeah well tannins are like a part of the Yin and Yang system of the wine. Why? To explain this I have to start from actually a very interesting question is: 'What is/are tannin/s?'

Red grapes
(c) Wikipedia; User Dragonflyir

Well the word tannin is under wine-knowing people used to describes all the polyphenolics in the wine. Okay no what are polyphenolics? Polyphenolics are a class of chemical substances that are produced by the grapes (normally much more in red than in white wines) and are a part of the plant defense/protection system. I guess you are getting no more confused. Alright lets make it easier to understand.
If you have a look onto a red grape. What do you see? Of course the red color! AHA! There you go! So polyphenolics are the red stuff in the grapes. Yes some of these polyphenolics are responsible for the color. In general the term polyphenolics in chemistry and biochemistry represents a huge and wide class of different chemical compounds (they do have some common similarities, otherwise it would be stupid to put them under all the same term, ain't?).

However you won't find polyphenolics not only the skin of the red grape, but also everywhere in the grape. Of course not all of them will give you a red color, some don't have any color, but nevertheless they contribute to the health and immune system of the plant and later also for our own health (I will come back to this in a short while).

Polyphenolics are substances that are produced by the plant in the secondary metabolism (its called like this because this metabolism is not primary necessary for the plant, but can be very very very advantageous; however it also cost the plant much more energy to produce these). Some other products of the secondary metabolism you might see in trees: Lignin is also a product of the secondary metabolism.

So polyphenolics are acting on one hand as radical scavenger. Radicals are generally produced in every organism under stress and can be harmful for the health. Therefore if you can somehow reduce these radicals its definitely good. On the other hand are working other polyphenolics like antibacterial and anti-fungal substance. Which means they either reduce the growth of harmful organisms or simply kills them (in high concentrations). A third advantage of polyphenolics is that some can absorb light (at least the one's which 'have' the color). We know all the results for having too much sun on our skin? Sunburn! So of course the plant tries also to reduce the sun influence to a certain degree. 

To summarize some traits of the polyphenolics and what they can do:
1) Act as radical scavenger

2) Act like antibacterial and anti-fungal substances

3) Act as shield against too much sun damaging effects

Coming back to tannins. I said: "Well the word tannin is under wine-knowing people used to describes all the polyphenolics in the wine". That is true but often wine people do intend to use the word tannins most of the time for the polyphenolics that are the skin of the grape! That is because tannins are highly concentrated in the skin of grapes, to protect the grape at all costs. Also these tannins will give later the wine the color and the taste. So here we come to the part about the "dark" nature of tannins. The tannins are generally know for a "bitter" taste and also causing for some people headache or even stomach problems. It is the balance and the composition of the amount of different tannins and different grapes (we just leave also reasons and occurrences during the fermentation aside for now) that results in this unbelievable dark nature of wine. 

I haven't read or heard a specific reason why some people react towards tannins with headache or even stomach problems. Even I sometimes can have troubles, that is depending on my personal feeling and stress level. So I guess as always it depends on the concentration of tannins that you uptake (okay now sounds like a medical description). On some days you are able to handle a lot and sometimes, well, less. However personally I think it also must have something to do with the receptors in our body that might react with different tannins differently (I don't have a number of how many different tannins are in nature, but believe me there are a lot. And "a lot" is not starting in hundreds).  

But we also know that tannins can have a "white" nature as well. And that is the health benefits, like radical scavenger and even more interesting immune system boosting and also helping to prevent heart-diseases. The latter part is also because of the so called polyphenolic "Resveratrol" which causes the so called "French Paradox" (that is seeing French people with quite - well formed - bellies and not suffering from heart diseases; cause they always have a glass of wine with food!!!). As we see here again you can never have just positive or negative of something. You will always have both. 

So I hope you know have much more knowledge about the tannins, polyphenolics, Yin and Yang in wine. I will now head out and enjoy the rest of the sunny day outside! Hope you do the same!
À bientôt mes amis!

PS: I most probably won't be able to post anything next week due to the fact that I will attend at the weeding of two of my best friends and also will have some guests staying Helsinki.  

Wine and "The Hunger Games"

Books!!!

M'enfin (finally!) I am back. Yeah it took like 2 weeks until I was ready to post something again. After my South Korean Co-worker Choi left I took 4 days off and had some nice Holidays. I needed some time to get my head free and also smell some fresh air after being stucked most of time in the office or at home (chores never waits....). I felt refreshed after these 4 days, however I got another bill to pay. The bill of overdoing it with my body the last weeks. So I didn't feel well and needed some more time to get back. So far I feel much better, still quite tired, however now looking forward to some Easter Holy-Days where I can rest some more. 

During the time after my 4 days of vacation I stayed most of the time (if not at work) at home and read a book. I haven't had the time to read a book or felt in any way to do so for a long time (reading so many publications at work makes you tired of seeing written pages), but after the 4 days I was trying it. I started to read "The Hunger Games". A book which is currently a major movie in the cinemas. To be honest I am not particular interested in books that get hyped up by advertisement or if people say you have to read it. I feel quite rebellious concerning books 'cause everybody has different taste (like with wines). However I must say even tho it is original a book for youngster/mid-adolescents it is really good! I read the first book in 4 days and now nearly reach the first half of the second book. I also watched the movie, which I must say didn't came close to the book, but hey its a movie and making a movie out of a book is - I guess - a very difficult thing. Anyway if you are interested in something easy and fast reading + a good story, then go for it. 

But enough of the book here, lets come back to something also very interesting: wine.
So yesterday when it started to snow again in Helsinki (we got like 20 cm of new snow the last two days) I suddenly felt like I needed something that reminds me of the summer. I picked up a foie gras du canard (its liver pâte from the duck), grabbed some fresh baked white bread and opened up a nice little bottle of Muscato d'Asti (a sweet white wine).

Bloc du foie gras du canard
(block of liver pâte from the duck)

Now here we have something new! What is a sweet wine, what is it good for and whats is a Muscadet? Uff a lot to explain and I try to make it short.
So a sweet wine is a wine that has a relatively low percentage of alcohol and a lot of remaining/rest-sugar. Why low percentage? Easy answer, because the alcohol is a product of the fermentation of the sugar of the grapes by the yeast/fungus and if you have a high rest-sugar in the wine, well then you definitely won't have too much alcohol in it. Also the higher the rest-sugar is in the wine the more toxic becomes the alcohol towards the yeast/fungus during the fermentation; so there is a limitation of the ability yeast to produce alcohol.

But how come that there is so much rest-sugar in it? Well that depends of some factors again. One is that the grapes have lost a lot of water because of some "noble rot" (Botrytis cinerea, a fungus that can infect wine grapes and cause loss of water) or that the weather conditions made the grapes skin fracturing.

Botrytis cinerea on Riesling grapes
(c) Wikipedia, owner Tom Maack

In the first case those wines are called "Auslese-Weine" (sorry only German word for this available). These wines are classified according to their alc/rest-sugar amount and also of the "kind" of berries that were used. The lowest classification is, if I am not mistaken "Beerenlese" and the highest is "Trockenbeerenauslese". Since you won't get so much juice out of grapes which have lost a lot of water already, you won't be able to produce many bottles. Vice versa this means that these bottles are not easy to get and very very expensive. In Germany you can pay between 8 - 20 € depending from which region and the producer (in Alko I saw a bottle of "Beerenlese" for 24 €, Mon Dieu! I don't wanna think of the price for the "Trocken-Beerenauslese"... ca va fait mal (translation: this is going to hurt)). Btw the classification of "Beerenlese and co." is a german one, so you won't find anything like this somewhere else. Of course other countries have different names for this, but the Germans have a lot of different sweet white wines since they are something like World Champions in White wine making. However please bear in mind that these sweet wine's are also called Dessert Wines due to their high rest-sugar. Normally you serve them together with desserts.
Just to mention here there is also something from Germany called an "Eiswein" (engl. translation: Ice wine). Because the grapes of this white wine have lost a lot of water thanks to frost and according to the rules the grapes are not allowed to be harvest before a certain day in January (I think its the 7th...not 100% sure). And obviously this one is even more rarely cause you have to gamble as a producer and hope you will get frost and a cold winter in January, so you won't gamble to high and use just some grape-vines.

But back the Sauternes and Muscadet. The Sauternes is a white wine from the "Sauternes"-region in France, and like with the "Beerenauslese" these grapes have lost a lot of water do to "noble-rot" (B. cinerea). The Muscadet on the other hand is made from grape variety 'Melon de Bourgogne'. However this wine is also sweet but if I a remember it right because the wine will "lay" on the yeast. While the yeast is disintegrated over time some compounds will get into the wine and give it special taste. These wines are a little less expensive than the others mentioned above.

Sweet white wine from
Alko Shop.

So the combination of foie gras and Muscadet is quite common in France (at least in the Southern parts) and both taste: Foie gras very fatty and Muscadet very sweet are quite well fitting to each other. However the Italian Muscato D'Asti (= Muscadet who has some carbon dioxide and sparkles) was from the taste sensation to strong personally. With all the carbon dioxide at the beginning I was not able to enjoy the foie gras. After the sparkling was gone it was very suitable to the foie gras.

Ca sera tous! (Thats all!) for today. Hope you enjoyed it! A bientôt mes amis!