Showing posts with label sauvignon blanc. Show all posts
Showing posts with label sauvignon blanc. Show all posts

Friday, June 20, 2014

Oyster and Sauvignon Blanc Pairing with Matanzas Creek

Oysters and Wine
It's unusual for one winery to produce four different Sauvignon Blancs, but Matanzas Creek Winery took the challenge. One afternoon, I attended a tasting of their four sauvignon blancs, each paired with a different oyster. The tasting took place at L&E Oyster Bar in Silver Lake.

We started off with the Sonoma County Sauvignon Blanc. In this one, there's high acidity and I definitely tasted the lime and nectarine. To produce this, the winery uses a lot of dry ice to keep moisture out during low temperature fermentation. The winemaker, Marcia Monahan, has moved towards picking the grapes based on color instead of brix.
Matanzas Creek
They paired the wine with Shigoku, a tumbled oyster from Willapa Bay in Washington. I learnt a lot about oysters during the tasting, too. So the Shigoku is the same species as the Hama Hama oysters, but farmers put them in metal tumblers. Being tumbled throughout their lives, the Shigoku develop more muscle and a thicker shell. Tumbling oysters are supposed to make them sweeter, firmer, and milder.

This was a very traditional pairing. With a high acid sauvignon blanc, it brings out the sweetness of the oyster and extract a stronger "sea" flavor. I like the Shigoku better the Bennett Valley, though.

Oyster

Saturday, January 25, 2014

A Sauvignon Blanc Dinner with Brancott Estate at Soho House

Sauvignon Blanc makes up 70% of all the wines produced in New Zealand. Brancott Estate was the first to plant Sauvignon Blanc and Pinot Noir grapes in Marlborough, back in 1975, and they seek to keep breaking ground with their new Chosen Rows Sauvignon Blanc. New Zealand sauvignon blancs are typically fruit forward and drank within the first 2 years. Their prices range no more than $30-35, in comparison to French sauvignon blancs which can go for $120-150. Brancott Estate and a few other pioneering wineries are now trying to make sauvignon blancs that are more about the structure and complexity, and can be aged, which is atypical for New Zealand.

I got to taste some of these wines and compared them to the French ones during a private dinner held at Soho House. Great food, great wine, and a beautiful view of Los Angeles.

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2010 is the first vintage of Chosen Rows to be released to the world (it will be released this year), and as such, we compared them to all 2010 vintages of two other New Zealand and two French wines.
Brancott Estate Chosen Rows Pour
Photo courtesy of Brancott Estate
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