Wining with Mel readers know that I love a good deal, and the Loire Valley’s Touraine region offers incredible value for those looking for an affordable alternative to their usual sauvignon blanc.
Continue readingTag: Sauvignon blanc (Page 1 of 2)
When I first started this blog, my goal was to document delicious yet affordable wines. This generally meant bottles in the $10-$16 range. As my salary increased and I was able to justify spending money on wine “for educational purposes,” that range got a little higher. But now that I am working for myself as a freelance translator, I am back on the lookout for amazing wine deals. Whenever I find a winner, I immediately classify it mentally in my Wines-To-Tell-Nana-About list.
My Nana and I at the National Arts Centre 
She hasn’t changed a bit!
What do you think of when you hear Bordeaux? France, certainly. Row upon row of vines. Left bank and right bank. Cabernet sauvignon and merlot. Highly structured reds that cellar for years, even decades. Fried chicken. Wait, what? Continue reading
On a beautiful, spring sunny day, I headed to the Andaz Hotel in Ottawa’s Byward Market for an exciting afternoon of wine tasting with Dourthe, a long-standing Bordeaux winery which prides itself on excellence and quality achieved by respecting the land. Established in 1840, the winery owns nine gorgeous châteaux in the Bordeaux region, each representing a distinct sense of place, i.e. terroir.
It is now day 4 of wearing the puffy coat and big snow boots
You know it’s bad when you start dreaming of warmer weather…in November.
That’s right, it’s not even officially winter and we already have a foot of snow in Ottawa…and it’s here to stay.
View from the front door
In wine terms, normally as the cold weather settles in, you reach for fuller-bodied wines to accompany hearty winter meals like stews and roasts.
Me on the other hand? I am dreaming of warmer temperatures and my wine choices are reflecting that. Instead of stocking up on big, bold reds, I seem to be buying—of all things—lighter-bodied fragrant whites. Is it just a major case of denial? Winter is here, get over it, Mel! But no, I’d prefer to bury my head in the sand and pretend that nicer weather is just around the corner, despite all the signs to the contrary. By the way, whose idea was it to have the sun set at 4:30? Continue reading
Hello friends!
It was another exciting wine day here in Ottawa with a fantastic Kim Crawford tasting event, which turned participants into winemakers! Kim Crawford wines have been around for 20 years and the brand has practically become a household name. Especially in my household. Just look at some of my previous posts and you will get a sense of how I often I drink it. Kim Crawford comes up in no less than six WWM posts to date, including this post on chardonnay or this one mentioning the KC Pansy! rosé.
I still remember the first time I tried Kim Crawford sauvignon blanc…
Am I dating myself with this flashback gif?
Well it’s been quite a week for Wining with Mel. It was bad enough that a terrible stomach bug had me out of commission for five days, but even worse that during that time the thought of wine…no…I can’t even…it’s too awful to say. The thought of wine for the last four days…repulsed me. Me! The lover of wine! I couldn’t even stomach the thought of it. Friends and family always know it’s bad when I turn down wine. It’s never a good sign.
I am hoping that I’ve now turned a corner. It has been much too long since the last post, and I have sooooo many wines to tell you about! As I mentioned, it was quite a big wining week before this gnarly illness took hold. And I am taking the fact that I can now imagine drinking these wines without my stomach turning as a sign that it is time to get back on the wine horse. That said, rather than enjoying a glass while I type, I am sticking with a cup of herbal tea this time around. Baby steps…
Some of you may recall that I went to the California Wine Fair last Friday which, as it turns out, was a somewhat disappointing experience.
For one thing, my wine count went down from the 42 wines tasted at the Taste Ontario event to somewhere between 30-35. And since I always seem to be in some sort of internally-driven competition, this felt like a loss of some sort, even though the competition was against myself and myself alone (which would make me a winner as well, no?).
This was partly due to the fact that at 5 p.m., 2 hours after my arrival, the lights flickered on and off, indicating the end of the trade tasting. At this point the pourers began promptly removing bottles from the table, and the panic among tasters was palpable. What? That’s it? It’s over already? But we were just getting started!
We were in beautiful Quebec City over the Family Day long weekend. And it was cooooooold. Not just the regular need-to-wear-a-toque-today cold, but the pull-out-the-long-underwear-and-balaclava kind of cold. It was the second year in a row with these same frigid temperatures over the long weekend. I remember, not only because my Facebook feed was filled with Memories from a year ago side-by-side with similar cold-related posts, but also because we had been on our same annual ski weekend, so the cold was particularly memorable. Now, I should mention that I am not in any way a skier. I tried it a couple of times when I was younger, but since I hate the cold, it turns out it wasn’t really my thing. So for the past three years, we have gone on an annual ski trip over the long weekend, which generally involves me hanging out by the fire with the cottage to myself while everyone else freezes their nuts off on the ski hill all day. I love it!
For this year’s ski trip, my husband and I, along with another couple had rented a really cute AirBnb in a quaint hillside town halfway between Quebec City and Mont Ste-Anne. We left Friday night right after work in, of course, a blizzard. Typical start to the long weekend. Needless to say, it took us much longer than expected to get there, and only arrived after midnight. We had a quick drink (a glass or two of Kim Crawford Sauvignon Blanc, in case you were wondering) then went to bed.
My husband was sick with a cold, so he passed on skiing on Saturday. Our friends took off first thing in the morning to take advantage of the fresh powder, while my husband and I had a much-needed sleep in. Our big adventure for the day was getting bundled up for the -30 °C temperatures with the wind chill and walking the 500 metres to the grocery store and back. I put together a beef stew in the crockpot and opened up a bottle of The Show. Yes, that’s right, the failed rib pairing (see link for wine description). You will be happy to hear that this rich Californian red was fabulous both in and with the beef stew. The rest of the evening was spent opening more bottles (including a bottle of my go-to cava, Segura Viudas) and playing various games, including Code Name and our family favourite, Cards Against Humanity.
The next morning involved another sleep-in. Once we eventually got moving, we headed to the Chutes Montmorency, a beautiful half-frozen waterfall a ten-minute drive from where we were staying. It was just as cold that day, so you’ll have to excuse me if I didn’t risk getting frostbitten fingers to take pictures, if only to keep my typing skills (and by extension, this blog) intact. Here’s a stock photo instead:
Source: quebecvacances.com
Luckily, my husband has heartier fingers than I do (or what is known as “man hands” in our household) and was able to doff his gloves momentarily to snap this lovely selfie.
As some of you may recall, the Sunday of the long weekend was Valentine’s Day. And since we had just celebrated our “real” 8-year anniversary (real because it commemorates when we became a couple, not our wedding, and is therefore really where it all began), a nice dinner out was in order. Quebec City has an excellent selection of nice restaurants, so after getting a few recommendations from a friend, we finally settled on Chez Boulay.
Cocktail hour with friends
We started off with some cocktails. They had some very interesting concoctions, and I of course chose something with a local sparkling wine in it, seeing as the restaurant’s mandate is to offer traditional nordic fare using regional ingredients.
We ordered some appetizers to start: some bison tartare as well as the salmon tartare. We all chose our mains and my sommelier skills were going to be put to the test when choosing a bottle of wine to go with all four meals. We were ordering the following:
- Confit goose and duck parmentier with scalloped parsnips, sautéed green cabbage, herb pesto with Labrador tea, cooking jus
- North Atlantic scallops with cranberry powder, navy bean and leek ragout, cooking ju
- Cod fillet, gaspesian broth infused with Kombu and smoked cod, potato purée with seaweed from Gaspésie, green onion emulsion
- Pan seared milk-fed veal medallion from Quebec, liver meatloaf, fried jerusalem artichokes, brussel sprouts, gnocchi with black walnuts and mustard cream sauce
Are you drooling yet?
So what did I have to work with? Two dishes that traditionally paired with white (fish/shellfish) and two that generally went with red (red meat). Also, my fellow diners were in the mood for a white, so that was tipping the scales as well. Plus I wasn’t super familiar with many of the wines on their list, so I happily enlisted the help of our server, who suggested a versatile Sauvignon Blanc from the Loire Valley from Henry Pellé.
I even discovered a new appellation I’d never heard of before: Menetou-Salon. It’s the one right next to Sancerre, home of perhaps the most famous French sauvignon blancs.
Menetou-Salon, located right-dab in the middle of France
This bottle was so lovely that I didn’t care that I was drinking a white wine with my red meat (goose and duck – YUM). It was light-medium bodied with a lot of apple flavours. I also got a bit of pear and definitely a lot of citrus. You could also see the terroir coming through in the wine’s subtle minerality. It also had plenty of acidity, so it was great with all of our dishes. Everyone was happy (though I was maybe the only one who really cared about what we were drinking ;-)). I was even happier when I discovered that this wine is available across the river at the SAQ! But it looks like stocks are limited, and at the $24+ price point, I’m not sure that I will be trekking across the bridge solely for that bottle. However, with the 15% bulk discount offered at SAQ Depots, my arm could be twisted.
What bottle did you open for Valentine’s Day? Or simply to beat the cold? Whatever the bottle, and whatever the occasion, I hope it was a lovely one.
Happy wining!
MWWC Winner
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