Odd & Perfect Couple – Chinon and Salmon

Here is a food and wine combination that I don’t think about too often: Chinon and Salmon.  At first, the combo sounds odd – like a peanut butter & jelly sandwich, sweet & sour soup, or Korean & Mexican taco. Our beautiful local salmons are now in season, starting with the Spring Salmon.

Chinon is an appellation in Loire, about 300 km southwest of Paris.  Chinon is a Cabernet Franc country.   Cabernet Franc is better known as Breton by the locals.  The locals sometime simply call the varietal Cabernet – meaning not Cabernet Sauvignon.  Chinon wears many expressions, all to do with where it is grown, vintage and, of course, the vigneron.  Gererally speaking, Chinon grown on sandy soils gives beautiful, perfumed wines that are meant to be enjoyed in its youth.  Bernard Baudry ‘Les Granges’ (pictured) is such an example. The same Chinon grown in a gravel and/or clay over limestone, will likely give structured wines that will benefit from some cellaring. 

Matthieu Baudry and his father Monsieur Bernard Baudry are seeking finesse and elegance in their wines.  Les Granges is usually no more than 12 to 12.5% alcohol.  The vines are grown in harmony with nature.  The grapes are harvested by hand – a rarity in the region nowadays.  The wine is fermented only using indigenous yeasts in concrete vats and bottled unfiltered in the late spring or early summer the following year.  The 2009 vintage is long sold out.  Matthieu informs me the 2010 Les Granges will be bottled this June.  The wine will be shipped this autumn and will arrive on our shores in October/November. 

The Les Granges 2008, the one I am enjoying now clocks in at 12% alcohol.   You can share a bottle over a dinner and don’t feel the vertigo.  The combination of Chinon Les Granges and our local grilled salmon is CONSCIOUS BLISS.