About Me
I'm a Melbourne boy, hailing from St Kilda with one ex, one current wife and four kids. Love the outdoors and making new discoveries. I cook a lot at home (cheers from wife) and do some preserving, mostly jams, pickles and fruit liqueurs. This is the diary of a cooking journey.

My Complete Profile

Recent Posts
The Kitchenhand
The Season Continues
The Bargain Hunter
Spanish Heaven
Please, Not in my Kitchen.
The Sausage King
Spiced Prickly Pear
You Bought What?!!!
The Activist
I'm One!!!

Links
1001 Dinners 1001 Nights
A Few of My Favourite Things
Abstract Gourmet
Apellation Australia
Becks and Posh
BurgerMary ATX
Cook (almost) Anything at least once
Cooking Down Under
Cook sister!
Cooked And Bottled In Brunswick
David Lebovitz
Deep Dish Dreams
Chef Paz
Chubby Hubby
Eating Melbourne
Eating With Jack
essjay eats
Food Lover's Journey
Gosstronomy
Grab Your Fork
I Am Obsessed With Food
I Eat Therefore I Am
Iron Chef Shellie
Just Desserts
Kalyn's Kitchen
Kitchen Wench
Lobstersquad
Matt Bites
Melbourne Gastronome
My Kitchen in Half Cups
Nola Cuisine
Not Quite Nigella
Nourish Me
Seriously Good
Souvlaki For The Soul
Stone Soup
Sunnybrae
Syrup and Tang
Steve Don't Eat It!
That Jess Ho
The Elegant Sufficiency
The Perfect Pantry
The View From My Porch
Thyme for Cooking
Tomato
Tumeric & Saffron
tummy rumbles
What I Cooked Last Night
where's the beef
WhiteTrashBBQ
Vicious Ange

Food Blog Resources
Food Blog S'cool
I Eat I Drink I Work
Kiplog Food Links

Food for Thought
Autism Victoria
Autism Vox
forget me now
Lotus Martinis
MOM - Not Otherwise Specified
St Kilda Today

Friday, December 01, 2006
Chablis
Chardonnay is one of those grapes that has a variety of expressions and also takes on the characteristics of wherever it's grown. In Australia, with our for the most part warm climate, chardonnay gets exceptionally ripe and allied with our propensity for malolactic fermentation, produces wines with nuttiness and butterscotch flavours.

In the spiritual home of this grape, Burgundy in France, they produce wines of immense power and presence that have a peacocks tail, that is the flavours fan out in your mouth, exploding on every taste bud, but because it is generally cooler, there is always a good acid spine that gives great length. Chardonnay from Burgundy is always, at the top level, majestic.

If you go further north to the Champagne region, again chardonnay takes on a whole other personality, producing a wine that is stripped right down for fruit and with spine tingling acidity to which the vignerons add bubbles to make a wine like no other. That a wine can be so austere yet be the epitomy of generosity is the result of an amazing alchemy.

Between these two classic wine appellations is another region that is producing a unique expression of chardonnay and that place is Chablis. Here the fruit again takes on a different character. Being about halfway between Burgundy and Champagne means it has key characteristics of both regions, but there is one thing that distinguishes this area and makes its wines totally unique, and that is its geology.


Cool climate vineyards need exceptional conditions to succeed. Chablis lies 160 kilometres north of Beaune and is therefore nearer to Champagne than the rest of Burgundy. Geology is its secret: the outcrop of the rim of a great submerged basin of limestone. The far rim, across the English Channel in Dorset, gives its name, Kimmeridge, to this unique pudding of pre- historic oyster shells. Oysters and chablis, it seems, have been related since creation.
HUGH JOHNSON, World Atlas of Wine


What this bed of limestone appears to confer on Chablis wines is an intense minerality, coupled with the cooler climate, produces wines of singular apparent austerity, which on closer examination have a certain richness and flintiness that is straining to be unleashed. Wines from here are a marvelous expression of chardonnay and a bottle of Grand Cru wine can easily live for twenty years, gaining complexity and releasing more of the uniqueness of the chardonnay grape.

This weekend there is a free tasting of Chablis from the 2004 vintage which is considered to be a classic vintage for this region. It's at the Prince Wine Store and features wines from Raveneau, William Fevre, Denis Pommier, Billaud Simon and Defaix. Just to make it that little bit more enticing, there are also wines from the 2004 Burgundy vintage, featuring producers such as Gerard Raphet, Maurice Ecard, Nicolas Potel, and newcomer Thierry Beaumont.

Prince Wine Store, 177 Bank Street, South Melbourne, 12.00 till 2.00 p.m., Saturday, 2nd December
 
  posted at 8:12 am
  4 comments



4 Comments:
At 1:29 pm, Anonymous Anonymous said...

Have a glass for me.

 
At 2:08 pm, Blogger neil said...

Hi tanna, that will probably be two or three or...

 
At 10:47 pm, Blogger Jeanne said...

Isn't it astonishing to taste chablis for the first time when you've grown up on New World chardonnays?? I could hardly believe it was the same grape! What astounds me is the number of people over here in the UK who profess to detest chardonnay but love chablis...

 
At 3:33 pm, Blogger neil said...

Hi jeanne, astonishing is right, it tastes more like a great reisling than anything else. I love the stuff.

 

Post a Comment

<< Home



Search


Recipe Categories
Soups
Salads
Vegetables
Poultry
Pork
Beef
Cakes & Desserts
Miscellaneous

Archives
November 2005
December 2005
January 2006
February 2006
March 2006
April 2006
May 2006
June 2006
July 2006
August 2006
September 2006
October 2006
November 2006
December 2006
January 2007
February 2007
March 2007
April 2007
May 2007
June 2007
July 2007
August 2007
September 2007
October 2007
November 2007
December 2007
January 2008
February 2008
March 2008
April 2008
May 2008
June 2008
July 2008
August 2008
September 2008
October 2008
November 2008
December 2008
January 2009
February 2009
March 2009
May 2009
June 2009
September 2009
October 2009
November 2009
December 2009
January 2010
February 2010
March 2010
April 2010
May 2010
June 2010
July 2010
August 2010
September 2010
October 2010
November 2010
December 2010
February 2011
March 2011
April 2011
May 2011
June 2011
July 2011
August 2011
September 2011
July 2012

Miscellaneous
AUSTRALIAN FOOD BLOGGERS
Prev ~ List ~ Random ~ Join ~ Next
Site Ring from Bravenet


Site Feed

counter easy hit

Credits
Blog Design by:


Image created by:
Ximena Maier

Powered by:


Photos, Original Recipes, and Text - (C) Copyright: 2005-2010
At My Table by Neil Murray, all rights reserved.
You may re-post a recipe, please give credit and post a link to this site.

Contact Me
Neil Murray

Follow messytable on Twitter