Road Trip!
My oldest son is here on Spring Break from Santa Fe for two weeks. What better way to counterbalance the warm, dry desert air and blue skies of New Mexico than a trip to the Oregon coast in March. We set out with the only clear destination being Tillamook, for cheese curds. We all love squeaky cheese curds.
After loading up on cheese curds we headed South to the Blue Heron French Cheese Company for a bottle of wine and a visit with the chickens. Granted my son is 17 and not the least interested in a petting zoo at this point in his life, but I'm a fan of chickens and wine, so he humored me. He's a good kid.
Blue Heron has an amazing selection of Oregon wines. After skipping bottle after bottle of $50.00 Pinot Noir, I discovered a 2007 Girardet Grand Rouge for a mere $12.00. The label said it was "In the tradition of the French Rhone Valley" but failed to mention what varietals were actually in the wine. No matter. I'm feeling adventurous.
Now before you go and say "Well, she should just change the name of this blog to 'Recession Rhone' I will tell you I have TWO wines that are next in line for review that aren't Rhones. One of them isn't even French. One of them is WHITE. So..just..be paitent.
This has an old world nose. Mmmm... beautiful, stinky barnyard. Got a little hazelnut and vanilla. Not a fruit forward wine- picked up some blueberry and currant on the mid-pallet. Nice structure, a bit tannic but not like I wanted to rip my face off, would be interested in seeing what this would taste like tomorrow. Except my brother-in-law finished off the bottle. Great value though, I'll keep an eye out for more of Girardet's wines.
I tried to find out the breakdown of grapes with no luck. The only thing I could find was "a blend of 14 varietals." ! ! !
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2 comments:
Blend of 14 Varietals? How typically Rhone. But i challenge anyone to name more than 5 Rhone Varietals - wine geek or otherwise...
Syrah, Viognier, Grenache, Mourvèdre, Marsanne, Roussanne, and Cinsault, to name a few. We love a good challenge!
Syrah is the only actual Rhone grape that is in our Grand Rouge. We call it a Rhone-style because its flavor profile is closest to that of a Rhone blend. We don't disclose all 14 varietals because it is a secret family recipe.
It was the first wine that our founder, Philippe Girardet, ever made. The story goes that Philippe--who's family is from the headwaters of the Rhone--decided to make a blend of 14 varietals so as to one-up the Châteauneuf-du-Pape. This is a sub-region of the Rhone where the maximum number of varietals that can go into a blend is 13.
We stumbled upon your blog entry earlier while doing some research on-line, and enjoyed reading it; keep up the good work (and wine tasting).
Cheers!
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