Liveliness of Pétillant

I only encountered the liveliness of pétillant in wines when I started drinking the wines that are traditionally made.  It is even easier to appreciate when a vigneron, like Thierry Puzelat, guided me through a tasting.

Pétillant literally means sparkling.  In the context of still wines though, it means a little tingling sensation in wines from naturally occurring carbon dioxide, which is a by-product of fermentation.  Traditionally, the pétillant is kept (i.e. wines are not de-gassed completely) intentionally because carbon dioxide is a natural preserver.  If wines are completely de-gassed, which is the case for about 99.9% plus of wines nowadays, additional sulfur would have to be used.

For the uninitiated, the pétillant taste can lead to falsely believing the wine is still fermenting.  For the traditionally made wines, pétillant gives that lovely liveliness. If you do not like pétillant, decant the wine for about ½ hour and all that beautiful pétillant taste will be gone.

The pétillant is only apparent in young bottled wines.  After a year or so in bottle, the pétillant fades.  For me, the pétillant stage of young wine is ephemeral and attractive.  When Le Clos du Tue-Boeuf ‘La Butte’ Gamay 2010 arrived on our shores, the wine had that striking pétillant.  After a few months, the wine has lost much of pétillant but has kept that stunning fragrance and freshness.

You can listen directly from the respected Burgundy vigneron Jean-Marie Fourrier in this podcast about pétillant.  Jean-Marie rhetorically asks: “Why replace the gift of natural preserver of carbon dioxide with chemical sulfur?”  If you are lucky enough to come across a bottle of Jean-Marie Fourrier wines, I urge to buy it.

I am at a point now where when I try young wine and taste zero pétillant, I ask why the vigneron chose to de-gas the natural preserver gift of carbon dioxide and replace it with abrasive sulfur. 

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.