2000 Grof Degenfeld Tokaji Aszú 5 Puttonyos and Clos Marie cuvee Simon 2007

I had these two wines on SAT together with some tasty home cooked French food and very nice company. I hope our guest, Alecsandra, had a good time and enjoyed the wines and the food as much as I did.

The menu,with one small exception, was home cooked with ingredients brought from my recent trip to France: duck prepared in two different ways.

We started initially with some old fashioned foie-gras and confiture d’oignons paired with a 10 years old Tokaj Aszu 5 Puttonyos: a marvelous combination.

2000 Grof Degenfeld Tokaji Aszú 5 Puttonyos

Price: 18-20 EUR

The wine has a beautiful clear gold-amber color. The nose shows apricots, lychee, caramel and pineapple. In the mouth the wine has a nice acidity, is unctuous on the palate, medium plus body with discreet orange cream, lots of dried apricots, honey, caramelized pineapple and some fresh grapefruit notes. The aftertaste is long with beautiful caramel and fresh fruit. Excellent+

The next dish was a tasty salad with smoked duck breast, ruccola, cherry tomatoes roasted in olive oil, nuts and peaches. Continued to serve the Tokaj together with this dish and it paired nicely.

The next dish was a little more complex: medium-rare magret de canard, baked baby potatoes with rosemary, grilled baby garlic and blueberries gravy with 3 spices.

For this dish, choosing the wine was initially a challenge, as I wanted to try the Clos Marie cuvee Simon 2007. Fortunately after 3 h in the decanter the wine proved to be a perfect match.

Clos Marie cuvee Simon 2007

Price: 22-25 EUR

This wine is produced in Pic Saint Loup, an area in Coteaux du Languedoc AOC. One of my all time favorite producers comes from this region being considered the Cru Exceptionelle of the AOC – Chateau de Cazeneuve with its two top cuvee’s: Roc de Mates and Sang du Calvaire. Both these two cuvee’s, selling for 21 and 35 EUR, could be found in Bucharest in a store on Calea Dorobantilor.

Pic Saint Loup is the name of a mountain (658 m alt), 20 km north of Montpellier, which is central to the small adjacent wine region. Chateau de Cazeneuve is a small producer and its wines are the favorites of quite a few Michelin stars chefs. Clos Marie was created in 1994 , beginning with 8 hectares, 75% of which were uprooted and replanted. It is today a 20 hectares vineyard, all bio dynamic.

The Simon 2007 cuvee is an opaque dark red/purple wine. If I am not mistaking this is a blend of 50% Syrah and 50% Grenache. The nose is quite tight even after 3 h in the decanter showing discreet flavors of ripe red fruits, olives and cocoa. In the mouth the wine is medium to full body, with dry tannins, ripe red fruits, smoke, licorice, white  pepper and cocoa. There is certainly a meaty character here. Initially the wine showed a certain heat from the 14% alc, but paired with magret de canard the wine showed nicely balanced and came more as a Bordeaux. The aftertaste is medium and dry. This wine benefits a lot from pairing with food. Good+

Thanks for reading…