The June Edition
Hello to members old and new!
Another month rolls around which means another, DELIcious box of wine, cheese and charcuterie.
This month, we are celebrating some of the finest products from France.
Whack the playlist on with the button below and let’s get going.
Wine Tasting
How to taste wine
The first step of assessing wine is looking at it
Wine snobs like to talk about the legs of wine. In all honestly, this is a bit of a waste of time.
The wine legs (or tears of the wine as the French refer to them) can give an indication of the alcoholic content of the wine. But it’s so difficult to be accurate with a reading from legs,
So we say just read the label!
For appearance, we only ever find it useful to note something if the colour is completely out of the ordinary i.e. it’s a really dark rose
The next step is to smell your wine.
Swirl the wine in the glass. Looks poncy but does release some aromas, and helps it not just smell like alcohol.
Broadly, smells can be broken into three categories.
Primary Aromas: grape-derivative and include fruits,
herbs, and floral notes.
Secondary Aromas: from winemaking practices and easiest to find in white wine. Examples include beer, cheese rind, or nuts.
Tertiary Aromas: from aging in bottle or oak. Normally savoury. Examples include roasted nuts, spices, vanilla, autumn leaves, tobacco, and leather.
Start broad. Is it fruity?
Red wine? Think of red, blue, and black fruits.
White wine? Think of citrus, orchard, or tropical fruits.
Once you’ve identified a scent such as citrus, you can now think if it’s more apple than lemon or more orange than lime.
This is all pretty personal to your own nose.
The same principle can be applied to floral and herb scents, but in our opinion, not many people can tell you the specific scent of geranium.
If you can detect herbs or floral notes, it’s a great start.
Wine Tasting
How To Taste Wine
Finally you get to actually taste the wine. Funnily enough though, tasting is predominantly to detect the structure of the wine.
Body: Think how differently skimmed milk, full-fat milk and cream coat the mouth.
Acidic: How much does it make your mouth drool?
Tannin: An annoying word but an easy one to detect. Imagine sucking on a teabag and how dry it would leave your mouth.
That’s tannin.
Dry or sweet? Tannin can trick you to think there’s no sweetness in a wine. Stick the tip of your tongue in as the best detector of sugar (probably not the done thing to do in a restaurant).
The final part of tasting a wine, is to come to a conclusion about it.
What type of wine did you just have and did you like it?
Was it too acidic or just a bit meh?
If you’ve just tried, for example, a Barolo, log that experience with that wine in your mind so that the next time you have a Barolo, you have a foundation of knowledge to judge it against.
The only way to really educate yourself is to drink more. Poor us.
Wine
Georges Darriaud Côtes du Rhône Rosé 2020
Name: Georges Darriaud Côtes du Rhône Rosé 2020
ABV: 13%
Grape: Grenache, Cinsault & Syrah
Country and Region: France, Rhône
Winemaking: Traditional
Tasting notes of Strawberries, Raspberries and Cherries.
This is what we call a real easy drinking rosé. With tasting notes of strawberries and raspberries, this wine is dry, crisp and refreshing.
Sweetness (dry to sweet) 1-5: 2
Acidity (low to high) 1-5: 3
Tannin (low to high) 1-5: 2
Body (light to full) 1-5: 1
Producer
Georges Darriaud
Expertly put together by winemaker Julien Dugas, this wine is a proper cellar door purchase.
These wines come from a selection of parcels, including those in their very own vineyards in Cairanne. It is expertly put together by winemaker extraordinaire Julien Dugas and you will not find better value for money for your wine anywhere – think of this as a cellar door purchase!
The range covers wines of outstanding value and the team also produce a Côtes du Rhône white, red and ‘Villages’ wine, as well as a ‘Cairanne Village’ wine, which is a township that was recently promoted to village status after the powers that be decided that the wines were so awesome that they should be brought into the same league as the famous wines of Châteauneuf-du-Pape, and other villages of similar quality.
Darriaud Rosé is made using hand harvested grapes, using the Provencal ‘rosé de presse’ method.
This very gentle pressing extracts as much aroma and flavour as possible with the least amount of tannins.
The ‘rosé de presse’ method, or ‘direct press’, means pressing the grapes directly without macerating them first, as soon as they arrive in the cellar. In other words, not allowing the grapes to soak in tanks. The result is a much paler wine compared to if the grapes were allowed to rest in tanks.
Cheese 1
Mimolette
Age: 24 Months +
Country + Region: France, Lille
Milk Type: Cows
Pasteurised: Yes
Strength Of Cheese: 4
Style Of Cheese: Hard
Texture: 5
What a stunner! Also known as ‘Boule de LiIlle’, Mimolette is a chewy nutty cheese with sweet salty caramel.
It was created in the 17th century in Lille as an alternative to Dutch Edam when Colbert forbade the import of foreign cheeses into France. Bright orange (coloured with annatto) it looks like a Cantaloupe melon inside.
The favourite cheese of Charles de Gaulle, Mimolette is at its best ‘tres vielle’; aged for at least 24 months. It darkens in colour as it matures and becomes firm and crumbly.
Mimolette is classified as a washed curd cheese. After pasteurisation and addition of lactic bacteria and rennet, the curd is cut into tiny grains which are then steeped in hot water to ‘wash’ them. This process yields a cheese with a less-acidic taste and a smooth texture. Annatto pigment is then added to create that signature colour.
Cheese 2
Tomme de Savoie
Age: 10 Weeks
Country + Region: France, Savoie
Milk Type: Cow
Pasteurised: No
Strength Of Cheese: 3
Style Of Cheese: Semi-Hard
Texture: 3
Our Tomme is ‘fermiere’, meaning ‘farm made’ and made entirely with raw milk supplied by the farmers of the five communes of the Chambotte Massif, and matured by exceptional affineur Joseph Paccard.
Tomme de Savoie is from the stunning mountainous region of Savoie.
It originated as a by-product of making large mountain cheeses such as Beaufort.
Crafted from semi-skimmed raw milk, the flavour of Tomme de Savoie is clean, milky and buttery. The suede-like natural rind has an earthy aroma and is responsible for mushroomy notes in flavour.
Cheese 3
Brillat-Savarin IGP
Age: 3 Weeks
Country + Region: France, Burgundy
Milk Type: Cows
Pasteurised: No
Strength Of Cheese: 1
Style Of Cheese:
Soft
Texture: 2
It is an industrial cheese produced by three dairies situated in the Ile de France region.
It is named after the famous French epicure and gastronome Jean Anthelme Brillat-Savarin.
Brillat-Savarin is a triple cream dessert cheese that was created by cheese-maker Henri Androuët in the 1930s. It is named after 19th-century gastronome and epicure, Jean Anthelme Brillat-Savarin.
Since classified as triple cream cheese, Brillat-Savarin has a fat content of at least 75% achieved by adding rich, luscious cream to pasteurized cow’s milk.
Young cheese tastes similar to fresh cheese but usually, it is matured for about four to five weeks to develop more complex flavours.
Charcuterie
THE DELI SOCIETY SAUCISSON SEC WITH TRUFFLE
Produced by a partner in France that has been making Saucissons as a family for 60 years.
Country & Region: France, Aveyron
Our partners in France are based 2 hours north of Toulouse in the bastide town of Villefranche de Rouergue.
This saucisson sec has been produced to traditional standards with higher animal welfare pork and infused with chunks of truffle for a truly delectable flavour.