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!)