The Iron Chevsky Wine Blog

To understand how perfect this pairing is, just think peanut butter and jelly, sea-salt and soft egg yolk, mustard and hot-dog, ketchup and french fries, Cabernet and steak... you get the idea?! OMG! When Dan and Ash put together a "casual" dinner just because , Ash's fresh pasta with wild mushrooms and Italian sausage, with shaved truffle cheese on top, served with the 1996 Michele Chiarlo Barolo Cannubi (thank you Sandy!) was orgasmic, except in a more romantic and indescribable way. When that truffly, mushroomy, fennelly goodness of a pasta was brought in proximity with the 1996, I could no longer separate the wine from the dish - the aromas melded, the flavors married, I was in heaven!  The charm of the perfectly aged Barolo from a classical vintage was irresistible.  Next to it, by comparison, I am sorry to say, the very impressive 2001 and 2005 Cavallotto Bricco Borschis Barolos just seemed out of place -- too young and primary (even the 2001). Cavallotto was...

My baby Evan was born in 2011. By all indications, not an easy year for birth year wines that he (and I) could enjoy 20-30 years down the road. We just missed the iconic European vintage - 2010 - by a thin margin :(  For those lucky parents whose babies were born in 2010, your choices across France, Italy, and Germany are vast! Right now, I am looking closely at top 2011 Sauternes (D'Yquem, Guiraud, etc...) - Sauternes is anticipated to be one of the top performers world-wide in 2011. To a lesser extent, some of the top reds in Bordeaux are worth looking at as well (Palmer, Pontet-Canet, 1st growths on the Left Bank, and some of the top wines from Pomerol, etc). While greater vintages (like 2005 and 2010) virtually assure high quality at all levels of the cru hierarchy and thus are worth focusing on the less prestigious properties, lesser years are great for getting the top wines, as their prices may be less than half of the "great" vintages, while their performance ten...

Note: please make sure you read my previous post . The story picks up where that one left off. It covers my visit to Chateau Guiraud, the conversations with the winemaker Xavier Planty, and some of the recommended food and wine pairings for Sauternes. I had not tasted many Sauternes before. And the ones I had, were tasty sweet wines but hardly special. I had never tried a Guiraud from a great vintage. On the cold sunny afternoon of Dec 23, 2008, an hour south of Bordeaux in the French countryside, it was all about to change… A man came toward us in the parking lot and smilingly introduced himself as Xavier Planty, a co-owner of Chateau Guiraud (pronounced "Gee-rrraw"). Xavier had been managing the Chateau since the 80’s, but only recently acquired a 10% stake in the business. Though only a 10% co-owner, it was obvious that he was the heart-and-soul of this whole operation. Standing in the parking lot in front of his tasting room, after a brief introduction, Xavier answ...

When one hears “Bordeaux”, the most common assumption a typical wine drinker makes is that of a brooding red wine. Indeed, it’s harder to find an image more stereotypical than that of an aristocratic English gentleman chewing on piece of steak, sipping on a glass of red Bordeax, and puffing on an smoky aromatic cigar. And I agree, in my mind (and on my palate) those latter three ingredients achieve something of a perfect harmony, though one can replace the English gentleman with the non-English self and still achieve bliss. In fact, the British have a more specific name for this red Bordeaux - a "claret" - which is practically synonymous with "Bordeaux". The brooding red is most traditionally a Cabernet Sauvignon based blend that also includes a significant percentage of Merlot and lesser percentage of Cabernet Franc and Petit Verdot grapes (and theoretically Malbec, though I did not run into a single mention of Malbec in my 3 days of wine tasting in Bordeaux). But ...