A Match Made in Heaven – Our Local Salmon & Loire Reds

Every year, I look forward to spring for many reasons.  One of which is our local spring salmon.  This is one of my favourite ways to cook spring salmon (serves two):

-          2 fillets of spring salmon with skin and ping bones removed.

-          1 TBS of grainy mustard

-          1 TBS of honey

-          1 TBS of finely diced shallots or green onion

-          1 TBS of chopped Italian parsley.

-          2 TBS of fresh squeezed lemon (about ½ of lemon)

-          Salt & pepper to taste.

-          5-6 TBS of olive oil.

Heat oven to 450 F.  You will need a 8 to10 inch pan that can go from the stove to oven (i.e. a pan with a metal handle). 

Mix the mustard, honey, shallots/green onion, parsley, and lemon and stir to make a sauce.  Add salt and pepper to taste.  Set aside.  Use quality salt.  I buy grey sea salt, dry it out on a tray, and crush the salt in a mortar.

Salt and pepper the fillets both sides.  Heat the skillet pan to almost high.  Add the oil.  The oil should be smoking in the pan.  Tilting the pan to slide the oil to the bottom of pan and away from you.  Add the pieces of salmon, fillet side down (i.e. boned side down for presentation purposes only).  Cook for about 2 minutes until the fillets have a good brown crust.   Flip the fillets and cook for about a minute.  Spoon the sauce over the top of the salmon.  The dripping sauce over the fillets and onto the pan will spatter.  Transfer the pan into the preheated oven. Cook for about 2-3 minutes.

Buttered jasmine rice, spring potatoes or rice pilaf is a great side dish.

All light reds from cooler climate work well.  Beaujolais from a balanced year, such as 2008 and 2010 works well.  Auvergne Gamay grown on mountains, such as 'La Guillaume' or 'Les Pierre Noires' from Jean Maupertuis are also a superb match with the salmon.  Cheverny Rouge, which is a mixture of Pinot Noir and Gamay (in Burgundy, the equal version is ‘Passetoutgrain’) is ravishing. 

For me though, pure Gamay from Loire is a match made in heaven with our salmon dishes.  La Butte (100% Gamay) from Le Clos du Tue-Boeuf from the family domain of Thierry andJean-Marie Puzelat is awesome with the salmon dish.  La Butte, like all Thierry and Jean-Marie Puzelat’s wines, has intentional residual carbon dioxide – which occurs naturally during wine making process.  The carbon dioxide keeps the wine ALIVE and vibrant.  You can decant it, if you prefer, and the ‘pearly’ taste of carbon dioxide will be gone in about 10 minutes.  Thierry Puzelat serves his reds straight from the bottle with the ‘pearly’ feel intact and straight from his cellar at 10-12 C deg.  If you don’t have a cellar, placing the bottle in the fridge for about 30- 40 minutes or 10 minutes in a Champagne bucket with ice & water will do.  The cool temperature really brings out the freshness and perfume of the light reds.

The Charms of Cheverny Rouge

A good Cheverny Rouge is one of my favourite red wines.  Cheverny Rouge is a blend of Pinot Noir and Gamay. In Burgundy, the same blend is ‘Passetoutgrain’.  The equal version in Loire is Cheverny Rouge.  The prices of Cheverny Rouge, even from a top producer like Le Clos duTue-Boeuf and Puzelat-Bonhomme, remain very attractive.

The appellation of Cheverny is relatively small – no more than 500 hectares or so.   Thierry Puzelat, along with his older brother Jean-Marie, farms their family 7-hectare domain of Le Clos du Tue-Boeuf in a tiny village of Les Montils.

The above are two different cuvees of Cheverny Rouge.  The single vineyard ‘Rouillon’ is from a separate parcel.  To me, the 'Rouillon' has a touch more prettiness and elegance.  Le Clos du Tue-Boeuf Cheverny Rouges have spectacular sour cherries, freshness, minerals and deliciousness that are hallmarks of their wines. Both cuvées  clock in at 11.5% alcohol! The cuvées spend about four to six months in neutral barrels and demi-muids (500 litre barrels) before being bottled without filtration.  The wine improves greatly in the cellar for about one to two years, if you can keep you hands off the bottles.

I like a good Cheverny Rouge because it is light in alcohol, pretty and versatile with a wide rage of dishes – grilled pork chops, roasted chicken, steak & frites, and even our local salmon.  Oh heck, the wine even tastes great with pizzas.  


For me though, there is something mystically mysterious about the Thierry and Jean-Marie Puzelat's Cheverny Rouges that have an emotional tug on me. I am not sure if I can put the emotional tug into words adequately.  The word charm comes close.

As a side item, Thierry Puzelat’s wife is an accomplished chef and she owns amazing restaurant L’Herbe Rouge in the village of Le Bourg à Valaire, which is located in the next village to Les Montils of Le Clos du-Tue Boeuf.  Pictured left is inside the L’Herbe Rouge. Having dined there, I can say L’Herbe Rouge is one of my favourite restaurants in France.  And that is quite the statement. Honest local cooking without the fuss.  Deliciousness of her cooking is only matched by her husband’s wines. I would like to imagine a restaurant like L’Herbe Rouge was common in the French countryside in the 1930’s and 1940’s before the main highways and byways diverted the traffic away from the small villages.  And that the village folks and tourists alike took quality time to take-in some honest cooking and relax.  The restaurant also has rooms available for rent.  As you can imagine, the wine list at the restaurant is awesome.  I can close my eyes, point, and be happy with the choice every single time.  In fact, I just close my eyes and I am transported to a piece of heaven in the tiny French village of Le Bourg à Valaire.