Match of the week
Faggots with onion gravy and Mas Belles Eaux Vieux Carignan
Faggots, which are basically a rather gamey British meatball made with pork belly and offal, are a bit of an acquired taste along the lines of the French sausage andouillette but well made, as they are when supplied by our local butcher, they can be very tasty. They need to be accompanied by onion gravy which normally leads one in the direction of a robust ale but the other night we had them with a bottle of Mas Belles Eaux Vieux Carignan 2006 which actually worked very well.
Carignan, as I’ve mentioned before, is not my favourite grape variety but well-crafted examples like this do have an appeal especially with robust gastropub dishes (braised lamb shanks and steak and kidney pie would be other apt examples).
Mas Belles Eaux is a Languedoc estate just north of Pezenas that was taken over a while ago by insurance giant AXA Millsimes who also own Quinta do Noval and Chateau Pichon-Baron.
The agency is now handled by Gonzalez Byass in the UK (+44 1707 273188) though the wine is currently in limited distribution*. At a retail price of £18-20 it may strike you as a an extravagant partner for offal of any kind but oddly it’s often the simplest dishes that show off good wines to best advantage. And there are of course less expensive Carignans and Carignan blends around to test the combination.
FromVineyardsDirect sells the less expensive Mas Belles Eaux Les Coteaux.
Image © Igor Klimov - Fotolia
Oxtail cooked in Priorat with prunes matched with 2004 Vall Llach Priorat
The highlight of last week was my trip to Priorat so this week’s pairing has to be one of the wines I tasted. Oddly it wasn’t one of the wines I enjoyed most although it was in the upper echelons of what the region has to offer : a Vall Llach 2004, a blend of 65% Cariñena (old vine Carignan), 20% Merlot and 15% Cabernet Sauvignon.
The winery was apparently set up by the Catalan singer Lluis Llach and this is their top cuvée. Unlike a couple of other strongly Carignan-influenced wines I tasted (Clos Mogador’s Manyetes and Mas Martinet’s Cami Peserolles) I found it quite overwhelming on its own (it was 15.5% ABV): very dark and brooding with a lot of wood on the nose and some massive tannins (I made a suggestion of roast ox as a suitable pairing in my tasting notes!) But it became as sweet as a pussycat with a rich winey oxtail stew with which I partnered it at the small hotel (Cal Llop) in which we were staying in the hillside village of Gratallops.
The oxtail, which tasted a great deal nicer than the rather blurry photo above might suggest, was cooked in Priorat (not Vall Llach, I’m sure) with prunes which freshened the wine, tamed its ferocious tannins and brought out its more exotic flavours. The wine also paired very well with some aged Manchego cheese.
Vall Llach is available in the UK from Justerini and Brooks. See wine-searcher.com for US and other stockists.
Wild boar and Monty's French Red
If you've been following the new alternative lifestyle programme Château Monty on Channel 4 you’ll know that ‘Monty’ is wine writer Monty Waldin who set out to make his own biodynamic wine in the Roussillon down in the far corner of south-west France
I got to taste it last week and was really impressed. It’s a typically gutsy, spicy southern red based on Carignan and Grenache but with quite a raunchy ‘animal’ character (yes, that is a tasting note!) which suits it perfectly to game. Especially the wild boar that frequent the area and I gather cause Monty not a few problems in a future episode so he’d probably like to get his own back on them. Slow roast pork with garlic and fennel seeds or shoulder of lamb with garlic and rosemary would also be good.
It costs a very reasonable £7.99 from Adnams who only have a limited amount to offer so I’d get in quick if you want to try it.
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