One recent evening I found myself staring into my pantry trying to figure out what to make for dinner. We’d been gone for a couple of weeks, so things were a little bare. However, I had a cold bottle of Saint Roch Vieilles Vignes and Côtes de Roussillon Blanc that needed a pairing.

A random packet of shrimp ramen kept staring at me. Yeah, ramen ––  like the type you kept around in college. Not even to be put remotely in the same class as ramen from a proper ramen shop, I can’t recall the last time I’d had one of these little blocks of noodles. Nonetheless, it seemed to be saying, “Don’t underestimate me! ” I’d tasted the wine and thought it would be a solid match for Asian flavors, as long as they weren’t too sweet or too spicy.

‘Alright then ramen, let’s have some fun.’

All the same, I thought we could do better than just pouring boiling water on the noodles, so I scrounged around for bits and pieces to create something a little more interesting. The results, which we’ll come back to in a moment, were not half bad. 

ROUSSILLON SNAPSHOT

•  Roussillon is located in southwestern France and it’s a part of the larger region of Occitanie. It was formerly part of the combined region of Languedoc-Roussillon, and you’ll most often still find sections of wine stores by that name. However, these two were combined with Midi-Pyrénées in 2016 to create the new administrative region of Occitanie. That’s all definitely a little confusing, just know it’s still a pretty recent change. 


Map courtesy of Sud de France.

• It definitely has its own personality. Despite long being combined with other regions, this area is pretty distinctive. For one thing, since it is right up against the border with Spain, it’s heavily influenced by its culture, particularly that of Catalonia, as well as that of France. This can be seen in the language, the food, and even the grape varieties grown.


• Mountains, ocean, and rivers, oh my. Roussillon is pretty small, but it has an extremely varied landscape. The overall area is shaped like an amphitheater that opens to the Mediterranean Sea to the East and is surrounded by three groups of mountains, or massifs: the Corbières to the North, the Pyrenees with the Mont Canigou to the West and the Albères to the South. There are also three major rivers: the Agly, the Têt and the Tech. All of this creates a lot of distinctive terroirs. 


• Sustainability. Roussillon has the highest percentage of organic and biodynamic vineyards in France by acreage. Those ideal growing conditions makes working in these ways that much easier.
  
• Bask in the fabulous Meditteranean climate of France’s sunniest region! It’s sunny and hot, with around 320 sunshine days per year, but the ocean and strong winds help keep things from getting too extreme and the vines disease free. The area also typically gets enough rain in late fall and winter to provide the grapes with enough water during the hot summers. It’s pretty ideal for growing grapes. 


• It’s pretty tiny. The region represents 2% of the national production in volume.


• Red, white, rosé, dessert –– all the types of wine are here. They produce stills wines, but for most of the last century that were best known for their dessert wines. They still produce at least 80% of France's Vins Doux Naturels (Fortified Sweet Wines). 
 These account for about 20% of the production in the region, with dry, still wines continuing to grow in importance.

•  25 different grape varieties are grown in the region. Combine that with the varied terroirs and styles of production, and you get a really diverse range of wines despite the region’s small size.


• Côtes du Roussillon, the AOP/AOC of today’s wine, spans over 118 communes in the Eastern Pyrenees (the western part of region is basically to mountainous for grape vines) and covers 12 000 acres. Wines under this category are always a blend of at least 2 grapes. Grapes grown are as follows.

• Rosé and red wines: Black Carignan, Black Grenache, Lladoner Pelut, Cinsault, Syrah, Mourvèdre. Macabeu and grey Grenache (for rosés only). 
 
• White wines: white and grey Grenache, Macabeu, Tourbat or Malvoisie du Roussillon, Roussanne, Marsanne, Vermentino.


THE WINE

Today’s wine is the Saint Roch Vieilles Vignes and Côtes de Roussillon Blanc 2017, an estate run by Jean-Marc and Eliane Lafage. The Lefage’s also own Domaine Lafage, where they farm 160 hectares of vines located just south of Perpignan, the capital of French Catalonia. With Spain so close, Jean-Marc also consults on several projects on the other side of the border.



Jean-Marc decided to buy Chateau Saint Roch with his father in mind. Jean-Marc comes from a family of seven generations of winemakers, and the first five generations had always lived in Maury. His father, in particular, loved this region and always wanted to live in a farmhouse in the middle of the vineyards (as opposed to in town) of Maury. Jean-Marc as well grew up, worked his first vineyard, and made his first wine there. Clearly, there was a lot of sentimentalities attached to this village, so, when an opportunity presented itself to buy the Chateau Saint Roch property, he jumped on it.

Both of the Lafage properties are family-run with lots of different, experimental cuvées. On the Domaine Lafage site, Jean-Marc describes the dynamic:  “My focus is on the vineyards, and Eliane is queen of the cellar, but we decide on the blends together.” He later adds, “My mother and father are still actively involved in greeting our customers, and in running the cellar door, and while Eliane and I take the most important decisions, it is really important to emphasize that we have a fantastic team who work with us, rooted in the culture of the Roussillon, and are devoted our success. Our children Léa and Nicolas, even though they are still very young, have already started to show some interest in the life of the property.”

Maury has historically been known for its Vins Doux Naturels, but this is a still, dry wine made predominantly of Grenache Blanc, along with some Roussanne. On the nose, a fruit bowl of aromas drew me in with notes of white peach, apricots, pears, green melon, grapefruit, and flowers. On the palate, the rounder fruit notes like white peach, tangerine, and ripe lemons hit up front. Then things moved into more puckery citrus notes like lime and grapefruit, along with a few sprigs of herbs, finally moving into a lightly minerally finish. It’s medium-bodied, starting off round and finishing quite crisp, and has medium acidity that remains bright.

It’s really a very sunshiny wine that would be perfect for sipping outside on sunny days, but it also seemed like it would be very food-friendly, fitting many different scenarios at the table.

THE PAIRING

We already know this particular bottle was destined for an off-beat ramen pairing. Rather than make a standard ramen soup though, I decided to make a stir-fry. I had shrimp in the freezer, and since we had “shrimp-flavored” ramen, they were the first item I grabbed to add to the mix. I also gathered up bacon, carrots I turned into zoodles, peas, corn, spinach. Soba noodle soup base combined with the shrimp flavor packet created the flavoring. Some fried eggs and Togarashi topped things off.



It was just a big, crazy mix of bits and pieces. This combination (other than the number of vegetables) might seem like high/drunk people food, but you know, it was super tasty. The wine made a refreshing complement to the food, going down super easy!

I might have to start stocking ramen packets more regularly.



For more ideas for playing with ramen see:

• Ramen Hacks: 30+ Easy Ways to Upgrade Your Instant Noodles 
• 14 instant ramen hacks that will make it taste even better  

OTHER POSSIBILITIES

The winery recommends this wine to enjoy during relaxing moments with your friends, as an aperitif, or with fish, shellfish, and white meats. Sushi is particularly recommended and I can absolutely see that working.

The last time I explored a white wine from Roussillon, we paired it with salmon and I think this wine would work quite well there too, and vice versa.

Find more pairing suggestions at Wines of Roussillon.

THE GEEKY DETAILS

Taken from the tech sheets on the winery and distributor's websites.

Blend: Grenache Blanc 80%, Roussanne 20%
Average Age of Vines: 50 years
Farming: Practicing organic, dry farmed, hand-harvested
Soil: Clay limestone, gravel
Altitude: 200 meters
Winemaking: Fermented in tank. Cold skin maceration. Fermentation at 16 °.
Aging: 5 months in concrete, with a small percentage aged in French oak demi-muids

MONEY TALK

I bought this for $17.99 on Wine.com and I say have at it! I’d say that’s a very Solid Value, and the fact everything is done by hand and the land is farmed conscientiously just about pushes this into Overachiever territory.  (Also, find it elsewhere on Wine Searcher.)

• Cooking to the Wine: Domaine de Majas Côtes Catalanes Blanc with Butter Poached Salmon and White Asparagus
• Cooking to the Wine: Gérard Bertrand Grand Terroir Tautavel Grenache-Syrah-Carignan with Saucy Lamb Loin Chops 
• 2 oz Pours: 16 French Wine Values 

And here are the rest of the group's offerings: 

• Wendy from A Day in the Life on the Farm pairs American Bay Scallops with French Roussillon Blanc.
• Cindy at Grape Experiences shares A Perfect Al Fresco Lunch in Roussillon: Domaine d’Aussières Chardonnay 2018 and Creamy Crab Quiche.
• Jeff from Food Wine Click! presents Banyuls Pet-Nat with Treats à La Buvette.
• Allison and Chris from ADVineTURES discuss Domaine Lafage Cuvée Centenaire: The Essence of Rousillon.
• Melanie at Wining With Mel tells us about her Adventures in Roussillon White Wines.
• Linda from My Full Wine Glass explains A Roussillon Blanc Turns My Thoughts Toward Chicken.
• Gwendolyn at Wine Predator give us Testimony to Potential: Chapoutier’s Bila-Haut Cotes du Roussillon Blanc Paired with Halibut.
• Robin at Crushed Grape Chronicles talks about Snow Capped Pyrenees to the Mediterranean Sea – Exploring the Stunning and Diverse Roussillon Wine Region.
• Cathie from Side Hustle Wino shares Why You Will Love the White Wines of Roussillon.
• Lauren at The Swirling Dervish tells us about Biodynamics and the Butterfly Effect: A Labor of Love in Roussillon.
• Camilla of Culinary Adventures with Camilla offers A Summer Pairing: Salade Niçoise + Bila-Haut Côtes du Roussillon Blanc 2017.
• Susannah from Avvinare pours Muscat de Rivesaltes – A Marvel from Roussillon.
• Katrina from Corkscrew Concierge hosts An Exploration of Roussillon White Wines.
• Terri at Our Good Life writes about Summer Love and White Wines from Roussillon.
• Payal at Keep the Peas whips up Northern Thai Food and a Roussillon Muscat.
• Here at Somm's Table we're having Fun with Ramen & Saint-Roch Cotes du Roussillon Vieilles Vignes Blanc.
• And host Lynn of Savor the Harvest offers Distinctive Roussillon White Wines for your Buy List.

Additional sources used for this post:  
Wines of Roussillon  
The Oxford Companion to wine via JancisRobinson.com  
Sud de France  
Wine-Searcher  


This post contains affiliate links, including these Amazon links, from which I might earn a commission at no cost to you.

Clos d’Audhuy was one of my favorite stops on my trip to Cahors in southwestern France last fall. 

Map courtesy of Wine.com

My visit to this winery was initially based on a completely impartial and unbiased selection on my part. The majority of winery visits made on this press trip were based on preferences emerging from a big blind tasting of the region’s wines. The visit further solidified it as one of my favorites. 




Winemaker and owner Benoit Aymard was so personable on my visit that I really couldn’t help but like his wines all the more for it. He’s fairly young, and while his father and grandfather were growers, his winery is pretty new. He was in his third year when we visited, and his winery facilities had just recently been built (actually, sections were still in progress).



On our visit, he came across as very down to earth. He has 12 hectares of land and he intends to stay small. He’s a dad with young kids and described to us that he wants his winery to remain at a size where he could really maintain his strict quality standards, while still leaving him time to spend with his family. Full respect.



His land is in the town of Lacapelle-Cabanac and had belonged to his family. In 2014, he had the opportunity to take over a piece and he jumped on it. When he took over the vineyards, he decided to rip up a lot of the vines and replaced them with what he considers to be a better clone of Malbec, planted at high densities. In addition to Malbec, he has also planted some Sauvignon Blanc, although of course, this falls outside the AOC.

The average age of his vines is about 30 years. His vineyards are split between the limestone Causse and the 4th terrace with alluvial and gravel soils – the soils in his vineyards date back up to 500,000 years.  (Read here to understand what I’m talking about regarding the Causse and the terraces. In that post I focused on 3 terraces, but the 4th terrace would be even closer to the top of the plateau.)

He farms organically, although certification is still in progress. Grapes are harvested in small trays, and are picked only when they’ve reached optimal ripeness. After the grapes are selected, they’re carefully destemmed and crushed, and are handled gently during vinification. All lots are vinified separately. He uses very little sulfur, and so works super clean to ensure the pure flavor of the fruit. I can attest that the place was spotless!

Grapes from each of his lots go each into a separate tank.

For the Clos d’Audhuy Cahors 2015, the vinification occurs in small, temperature controlled stainless steel tanks. Afterwards, wines are matured in large (400 L) barrels for 12 months, to maintain the fruity, freshness of the wines. (See the tech sheet here for more details.)

For me, the Clos d’Audhuy wines were demonstrative of a style of wine quite different from the very rustic style the region is best known for (several wines in this post fit that style). Earlier on in his career, Benoit worked with Paul Hobbs in various places. Paul Hobbs is a partner for the Crocus wines I’ve shared a couple of times before (here and here), which are representative of a more polished international style. Clos d’Audhuy's wines are in a different camp from those as well. In addition to being terroir drive, he prefers a fresher style that shows off the fruit even more.

This wine was a sample I had leftover from a small tasting seminar that I put together and led earlier this year. It was provided by O'Donnell Lane and Vin de Cahors. Please note that all opinions are my own.

I’ve now had the chance to try the Clos d’Audhuy Cahors 2015 (average price $22) several times and I’ve always been struck by the pretty fruit quality. On the most recent tasting,  Greg and I picked up notes of fresh blackberries, violets, light spice, and hints of green herbs. Greg called it a “green chocolate forest.” Plums joined in on the palate. The fruit was rich and mostly fresh, with some lightly sauced notes. There were spice notes of black licorice and pepper, as well as stony earth, and some light herby green notes. It's a dense wine, definitely full-bodied, and it's high in tannins, but with acidity that cuts through. While there's a brighter quality to the fruit in this wine than in many others from Cahors, I still would recommend decanting it. It is Malbec, and Malbec tends to be big. I found the wine to be a little tight at the beginning during this last tasting, and the fruit came more alive with air. I'm also very interested to see where this wine goes with a little age, so I'm going to have to find myself another bottle.

I think this wine really delivers a lot of bang for the buck at this price point. It's an Overachiever in my book.

For an even more easy-drinking take on Cahors, try Clos d'Audhuys Les Polissons (Avergae price $16). I tried the 2017 at the winery and it showed beautifully pure black and blue fruits–boysenberry, blueberry, blackberry. There were also light notes of lilacs and hints of earthiness. There was a pretty current of acidity bolstering the fruit, and soft, dusty tannins. This is a wine that is meant to be drunk young to experience the fresh, vibrant fruit..

There's a little  word play going on behind the name "Polisson." It comes from a combination of his kid's name – Paul and Lisson. The word also means "tricky," while also connoting cuteness. The drawing on the label is a sketch of them.

I bought this saffron gelée at Clos de Chêne, one of the other lovely estates I visited.

I brought home a trove of culinary goodies from Cahors (see this post to glimpse some of the amazing food in the region) and I still had some waiting in the kitchen cabinet, including a tin of foie gras terrine and a jar of saffron gelée. Now seemed like the time to bust into them. I decided to create a cheese spread around these treats, and see how the wine fared with different cheeses. The foie gras terrine paired pretty easily, while the saffron gelée paired best when added lightly to the cheese.




Here were our findings:

 

Brie

This was just a basic one I had from Trader Joes. Since it was around,  we decided we might as well try it. It was smooth, creamy, and mild; you know, you’re basic brie.

Sadly, this pairing did not work. The wine became a little bitter with this cheese.

Brebis Pyrenes Hervé Mons

I was aiming at finding cheeses from the area, but couldn’t find any from the immediate vicinty, but I found a couple from elsewhere in l’Occitanie. Pyreness Berbis is from the Basque regions near the Pyrenees mountains for over 1,000 years.

This is a sheep’s milk cheese. It was nutty, tangy, had a nice hint of saltiness, and light notes of hay, as well as fresher grasses.

The wine wasn’t bad with this one, bringing out the saltiness in a nice way.
 

Roquefort Papillon Révélation

Roquefort is also from l’Occitanie. I found this charming story on Wikipedia:

Legend has it that the cheese was discovered when a youth, eating his lunch of bread and ewes' milk cheese, saw a beautiful girl in the distance. Abandoning his meal in a nearby cave, he ran to meet her. When he returned a few months later, the mold (Penicillium roqueforti) had transformed his plain cheese into Roquefort.

This blue cheese is also from sheep’s milk. It’s aged for 60 days or more. The cheese was salty, with a floral funk like fading flowers. It had a pleasant sharpness which was smoothed out by the buttery quality of the texture.

This was hands-down our favorite pairing. The sharpness of the cheese rounded out alongside the wine, and in turn, more fruit came out in the wine.

• Jane from Always Ravenous explores the "Flavors of Fall Paired with Cahors Malbec"
• Cathie of Side Hustle Wino looks at "Cahors  - The Birthplace of Malbec"
• Jill from L’Occasion shares "Cahors, a French Classic"
• Camilla of Culinary Adventures with Camilla will be posting "Château du Cèdre Extra Libre 2018 Malbec + Cider-Braised Chicken Thighs"  
• Wendy Klik of A Day in the Life on the Farm samples "A Trio of Cahors Wine and the Pairings Served"  
• Jeff of FoodWineClick! gives us "The Malbec You Never Knew: Cahors"
• Linda of My Full Wine Glass shares "Newbies to Old-World Malbec Discover Cahors"
• Cindy of Grape Experiences explores "The Old-World Style of Malbec from Cahors"
• Deanna of Asian Test Kitchen give us "French Malbecs Meet Chinese Duck 4 Ways"
• Gwen from Wine Predator shares “From Cahors: Biodynamic Chateau du Cedre Malbec with French Charcuterie”
• Pinny of Chinese Food & Wine Pairings matches “Cahors Malbecs and American Wagyu Beef Asian BBQ ”
• Cynthia and Pierre of Traveling Wine Profs give us "Cahors, Hainan Chicken Rice, and the Stories Wine Books Tell"
• Susannah of Avvinare will be “Shedding Light on Old World Malbec from Cahors”
• Payal of Keep the Peas discusses “Cahors: What Put Malbec on the Map”
• Rupal of Syrah Queen will posting “Cahors - Tasting “Black Wines” With The Original Malbec”
• David of Cooking Chat pairs “Mushroom Truffle Risotto with Cahors Malbec”
• And I’m "Bringing Home Cahors with Clos D’Audhuy" here on Somm's Table.

At a lunch at Le Caillau this wine from Château Haut-Monplaisir was lovely with this Duck Liver Parfait with marmalade from garden damson plums and toast. The picture at the top is of their charming entrance.

And at the same lunch, this Secrets de La Gineste was beautiful with this Hare in Chocolate Sauce with butternut squash.