It's Wine Blogging Wednesday!

Cheers to the first addition of Wine Blogging Wednesday on the Tempranillo Tango Blog. Once a month those of us crazy enough to try, describe a wine to fellow wine lovers of the world. For more info and to join : http://www.winebloggingwednesday.org/
What I really love about being a part of this is that I have a good excuse to taste wines I might not otherwise try. Then when everyone has posted about the wines they have tried, there is a great wealth of information about the wine(s) of choice. And not only from people that make wine, but people that love wine, want to love wine, a broad range of palettes.

This months choice was Cabernet Franc from France. I purchased this wine as a WBW three pack from Domaine 547, an online wine retailer that was kind and brave enough to put these together.
http://domaine547.com/She has wines that I would have to travel a long way for and with gas prices- well- this was the way to go for me.

Now, on to the review!
The wine is from Chateau Du Hureau of the Saumur-Champigny region-their non-designated 2005 bottling (http://www.domaine-hureau.fr/uk/fichestechuk.htm)
I really like to taste wines with food, so the first night of tasting (yes, more than one, explanation to come) I put together a cheese fondue made with gruyere. My thinking was that it would help to bring out certain components, like fruit, of the wine. I opened the bottle and the aromas of the wine immediately started flowing out- good sign. A great precursor when you are about to taste-get the senses moving. Poured the glass- aromas of blackberry, vanilla, some warm spice, and dried herb came first. then a little more of the barrel wood-smoke, burnt rubber. There were no 'technical flaws', meaning volatile acidity or Brett or any other nasties. A very clean, young nose.
Tasting the wine brought a lot of hard tannins-not harsh, but young, need more time and less wood tannins. A little of the blackberry fruit came through, but was mostly overcome by the oak for me. Perfect acidity, making this potentially a good food wine. It also had a lower alcohol-very refreshing for me since I am immersed in high alcohol reds here in California......
With the cheese fondue this aspect of the wine was intensified, with the fruit totally fading away.

With this I decided I had not made the right food pairing decision and decided to cork up the wine and try it the next day with a beef and mushroom dish with egg noodles and steamed broccoli. The stay overnight I though might help to 'loosen up' the wine a little, allowing the beautiful fruit I could find to perhaps emerge. I am always the 'eternal optimist', but this was not the perfect pairing I was hoping for either. The overnight partial bottle did soften up just a tad, but the fruit still struggled to be free-the oak definitely kept it's hold!

I would love to try this bottle in a couple of more years- allow the fruit and oak to merge and become more as one.

I have said enough about my wine adventure- the Mustang Winemaker, Penny

Oh by the way, many of you may not know-I have an e-newsletter with monthly wine specials for news subscribers only and updates-www.coralmustang.com and click on the sign me up or respond to this blog.