Jacques DuPont Names Brane-Cantenac to Coups de Cœur

Jacques DuPont, wine critic for Le Point Magazine, has named 2011 Château Brane-Cantenac to his "Coups de Cœur" list.

Coups de Cœur roughly translates to "love at first sight," and is the annual list of DuPont's favorite wines from the vintage. The last time Château Brane-Cantenac was named to the list was with the 2000 vintage.

Images of the Coups de Cœur event are available on the Château Brane-Cantenac website.

Congratulations to Henri and the entire team at Brane on the well-deserved success!

Wine & Soul in Bordeaux

There is something special about a good wine bar and Wine & Soul is definitely a good wine bar. I learned about the bar while touring Chateau Pontet-Canet and had to check it put.

Located at 23 rue du Couvent, near the Quai, Wine & Soul has been open for about 18 months. The bar has a very cozy feel to it, with signs of music and wine all over the walls. There were no live bands on the nights I was there, but the music that was playing was fun and low key, enjoyable but not enough to drown out the conversation.

The wine selection is excellent, I found a 2006 Lafon Rochet the first night and a very nice 2001 Brane-Cantenac the second night.

The food is also excellent with an assortment of tapas a well as traditional French faire.

Of course, what makes any bar great is the people and here Wine & Soul really excels. The guys that run the bar are passionate about the wine they serve and are genuinely friendly. If you are looking for someplace to have an enjoyable evening of wine and food I highly recommend Wine & Soul.

Cabernet Franc Bracketology at Fabbioli

In April I was fortunate enough to have been invited to a unique wine judging event held at Fabbioli Cellars. This was a judging of 2010 Cabernet Francs from across Virginia.

2010 was one of the best Virginia vintages in recent memory, even surpassing 2007. Given the prominence that Cabernet Franc plays within Virginia Wine, and that we were tasting 2010 vintage I was sure it was going to be a great event.

And it was, it was also a very interesting way to do a wine judging.

The judging was done bracket-style and was a mix of bloggers, professionals and lay people.

Our host, Jimmy, has a detailed write up here, here, here, and here.

The way it worked was that they broke us down into four groups, each group blind tasted a different set of wines, the winner from each of the groups advanced to the next round.

This means that not everyone tastes all of the wines, until it gets down to the final groups. I think this method helps remove some of the bias that can be inherent in a judging. For example, every one knows I am big an of Doug's Cabernet Franc, and it is one of the wines I can recognize blind - even amongst other Virginia Cabernet Francs. Since I wasn't in the group that initially tasted the 2010 Fabbioli Cabernet Franc my bias couldn't (subconsciously) inflate the score.

Each wine was judged on several different characteristics and the wines with the highest scores advanced to the next round.

In the end, the winner was the 2010 Jefferson Vineyards. You can see the progression in the chart above, provided by Chris at Beltway Bacchus.

Congratulations to Andy, at Jefferson Vineyards, and to the staff at Fabbioli Cellars for putting together a great judging and I look forward to future judgings like this.

A Taste of TasteCamp 2012 at Breaux Vineyards

TasteCamp was created in 2009 by Lenn Thompson, of The New York Cork Report. Its goal is to get journalists and bloggers together in a specific region to taste as much wine as possible, and speak to as many winemakers from that region over the course of a weekend. This weekend, TasteCamp 2012 was held in Northern Virginia, where I happen to live. Unfortunately, I was unable to attend the majority of the events, but I was able to meet up with the group on Friday night for a wine dinner out at Breaux Vineyards that was catered by Tuscarora Mills Restaurant.
The group rode out to Breaux on a bus (yes, I was the last one on the bus, and if you ask Frank from DrinkWhatYouLike, I made us late!)and upon our arrival, the ever gracious host Jen Breaux greeted us with a 2010 Sauvignon Blanc. After she greeted us, we had a chance to mingle on the patio and enjoy some delicious passed hors d'ouevres such as roasted pear an carmelized onion tartlets and seared scallop on lavosh with fennel salad and orange glaze. We also were able to taste 3 other wines as well. The ever popular 2010 Jen's Jambalaya, a great all around table white, the 2010 Viognier, and the 2002 Merlot Reserve.

After a while, we were directed to the barrel room where the tables were ready and waiting for our arrival. Our first course was a salad with local organic greens, crumbled goat cheese, walnuts and a balseto vinaigrette that was paired with the 2011 Breaux Rose. This is the first wine produced by the new winemaker, David Castano. It is a blend of nebbiolo, cabernet sauvignon and merlot. This rose is a bit drier than in years past, but was delicious!

The next course was Spiced Angus Beef Medallions with bacon fig sauce scented with chocolate, gorgonzola and risotto studded with currants and almonds. This was paired with the 2007 Cabernet Franc Reserve and the 2007 Cabernet Sauvignon. The Cabernet Franc was done in all French Oak (mostly new) and went really well with the beef. The Cabernet Sauvignon I thought paired better with the risotto, but of the two, the Cabernet Franc was my favorite.


The third course was a variety of cheeses (morbier, valdeon blue, mahon, quince, and some hazelnut-onion marmalade) paired with the 2001, 2002, 2005 and a barrel sample of the 2007 Nebbiolos. I had recently attended the Nebbiolo Vertical at Breaux, so it was interesting to have them again, and note how even in that short time they had changed a bit. The 2007 Nebbiolo was much darker than the others, and definitely seems like it will be as good as the 2001 after it's been bottled for a while.

For dessert we were served a white chocolate-apricot cake with lychee sabayon. This was paired with the 2010 "Chere Marie" Vidal Blanc and the 2006 Soleil. Both great dessert wines, but my preference is the Chere Marie as it is not quite as sweet as the Soleil.
It was a fantastic evening of food, wine and meeting some other great bloggers that I normally only see online!! Thanks so much to Lenn Thompson for allowing me to join the party, even if it was just for an evening, and to Breaux and Tuscorora for putting together yet another Fantastic event! I can't wait to see what all the other bloggers have to say about the rest of the weekend! Cheers!