French Wine Dinner at YaYa's

   Tuesday March 15th 2011, I attended the French Wine Dinner sponsored by Worldwide Wine and Spirits, Ya Ya's Euro bistro and featuring the wines of Chateau De Nages (Nahh-chay) produced by Michel Gassier.  Our host of the evening Josu Galdos from E.U. Wine Imports featured wines from the Costieres De Nimes which is the southernmost region of the Rhone river valley.
   As always the staff at Ya Ya's strives to put on a good show with the food and wine pairings and tonight was no different. We started with the Terre De Molines Sauvignon Blanc 2009 which was 85% Sauvignon Blanc15%Viognier with a Haricot Vert Salad with walnut vinaigrette, caramelized tomatoes, shallots and goat cheese. The wine possessed a bright straw color, nose of citrus peel, lemon peel and fine light bodied flavors that were an impeccable match against the salad. One of the first of the 2009's I have tasted, I can see why critics are praising the vintage from Bordeaux to Burgundy to the Rhone as I found the Sauvignon Blanc to have impeccable balance as well. Our first red wine of the evening was the Chateau De Nages
Reserve Rouge Costieres de Nimes 2008 being a field blend of 70% Grenache and 30% Syrah paired with the Yellowfin tuna with sauteed spinach, black pepper buerre rouge and crispy leaks. The wine had a great nose of blackberries, violets with a hint of smoked meat and on the palate multi-layered flavors of blackberry, boysenberry and savory sauces. The black pepper buerre rouge sauce really brought out the flavors of the wine while not cutting into the richness of the tuna. Ya Ya's makes one of the better Coq Au Vin's in town and tonight was no exception being being paired with a Grenache, Shiraz and Mouvedre blend from Chateau de Nage Vielles Vignes (Old vines) 2008 also from Nimes. A nose of earth, tobacco, smoked meat, ash, leather, dark robust fruits caught my attention immediately. On the palate, succulent flavors of tayberries and blackberries were evident but were clamped down by the major tannins on the finish. This is still a very young wine which Josu described as a mini Chateauneuf Du Pape, although I don't think it has quite the multi-dimensionality of the "Big-Boy" C.D.P.'s. but priced under $20, is an awfully good value.
I think the highlight of the evening was the Les Pilliers Syrah from Nimes 2007 from the very warm Indian Summer of 2007. Perfect for Syrah. This was almost Australian in style, with a great full blown nose blackberry, black currants, white pepper and spices. On the palate it had great complexity rivaling wines in the $25-$45 dollar range. Paired with the Venison Roulade it was ecstatic, although I was underwhelmed by the Venison's lack of a gamy flavor, until I found out from the Chef's it had been domestically grown and fed. Last but not least, was a dessert I've never had before. Chocolate Ravioli filled with Hazelnut mousse and a vanilla creme anglaise. I had manged to save a little of each of the wines for dessert to see how they would hold up against this unique dessert. The 2008 Reserve Rouge went well but the smoked meat and boysenberry proved to be a bit of an overthrow while the Vielles Vignes 2008 turned out to be a better suited match until I got to the Les Pilliers Syrah which just sung against the vanilla creme anglaise. Normally you don't think of Syrah paired against a big chocolate dessert but the hazelnut and white chocolate anglaise really brought out the wine in a very unique way with its dusky overtones.
   All in all this was a very good tasting, it is too bad more people weren't there. I counted about twenty five or so people. My suggestion to the distributor would maybe to put out some flyers at some retailers, with their permission of course, hopefully to get better attendance along with an e-mail list.