Being a wine consultant at K&L means tasting 50 (or more) wines over the course of a normal week. It’s a lot of fun, but very hard work too! This week we had the pleasure of having Mulan Chan (K&L’s Rhône and French Regional buyer) here in Hollywood. We tasted wines from about every major wine region in the South of France, from Collioure to Bandol, Crozes-Hermitage to Beaumes-de-Venise, and north to the beautiful Savoie region in the Alps. For me, tasting these wines is almost like having a ticket home; they take me right back to my childhood (see my bio below). The taste profiles of these wines ranged from a bit rustic, to very refined, from light and juicy to very traditional, and some had an almost animal characteristic. When it is all said and done, it still amazes me the enormous variety of styles there are in the South of France, and all so food-friendly. In fact, one can (and one should, at least once in a while) plan a whole meal around these wines, from appetizer to dessert. It will be like eating on a table al fresco—under the shade of an old and gnarled olive tree, with family and friends. Garrigue and lavender whiffing in the breeze, laughter and sun, lots of the sweet Provençal sun!

“Oh, la doucer du Midi…”

Here is the list of some of the wines we tasted:

Bugey-Cerdon (Méthode Ancestrale) "La Cueille" Patrick Bottex
Fun, fun and more fun! Here’s a wine bursting with raspberries and bright red apples. Very light in alcohol (8%) and full of bubbles. Rosé from gamay and the very indigenous poulsard variety. For me this wine is picture perfect for Thanksgiving— the last thing I would want is a heavy and cumbersome wine for this late afternoon dinner. Instead this is a light, refreshing, food-friendly wine that would pair just about perfectly with turkey, cranberry and everything that goes with it. And it doesn’t give me a headache! I could give this wine nothing less than 5 stars for what it is!

2005 Collioure "La Pinede" La Tour Vieille
Rich and full-bodied? Sure is. But it’s a bit more than that! Lip smacking dark fruit, with very velvety tannins to just put it all in perspective. Mostly grenache, this wine would pair with just about any kind of red meat, like spicy lamb couscous with grilled vegetables! Collioure is the appellation that occupies the same geographical area as the vineyards of Banyuls, but it refers only to dry wines. It is the last (or first, depending on where you are coming from) wine region of France, crossing the Spanish border.
4 stars

2004 Bandol Domaine de la Bastide Blanche
I have a sweet spot for Bandols, for mourvèdre in particular, which makes up 75% of this one. Its vivid blood red color almost jumps from the glass. Cassis and tar and deep black cherry intermingled with…what is it? Black truffles? Espresso beans? And yes, it has tannins, but not aggressively so. Decant this beauty for all its glory. Oh, this is a blockbuster for sure, but one that would not only go very well with food, but indeed demands a juicy Gigot d’Agneau! 5 stars – I said I had a sweet spot for Bandols!

1997 Rivesaltes Ambré Domaine Fontanel
Unfortunately Rivesaltes has been a bit obscured lately by the brightness of the other dessert wines of France (Sauternes & Co), but it is so rich and complex, so full of caramel and spices and honeyed-roasted-almond flavors, that it just about blew everybody’s mind at our staff tasting. If you would like to really impress your friends with you cool finesse and knowledge of wine, pair this delicious wine, slightly chilled, at the end of your meal with some hard cheese from either Spain (this area of France was, until 1659 part of the Catalan Kingdom) or France, and just bask in your success. Plus, a wine like this means you won’t have to worry about making dessert! 4 stars

—Jacques Moreira
Rhone and French Regional liason in Hollywood

Bio:
Having being born in Rio de Janeiro into a very proud French/Portuguese family (my grandparents fled a very dark and occupied France), gave me the best of all worlds, one very old, and another very new. I’ve always had three different perspectives on everything growing up, three different opportunities to understand the world around me and to try to make sense of it all. From Ipanema Beach, to the pebbly coastline in Nice, (where I spent most of my childhood and where my family is from). Caipirinha and Feijoada, codfish and Vinho Verde, Daube and Bandol, and the always present Port, rosé, and…beer for those 110 degree summertime days in Rio! I always worked in the food business, in Paris, Nice and San Francisco. While working at Jules Verne in Paris, I decided to devote my career solely to wines and eventually got my sommelier certification through the International Sommelier Guild.