Wine Woes

Food and wine community, I need your help! We're planning a May trip to France with my sister and brother-in-law. While a good chunk of the trip is allocated for visiting family and Ms. Paris (the city, not the socialite), we're touring the Burgundy wine country as well. Most of my wine education has taken place in Napa, so I've been trying to educate myself on French wines in hopes of selecting good vignerons to visit.

The most inspiring resource I've come by is Kermit Lynch's Adventure's on the Wine Route. It's out-of-date, so while it lacked many recommendations for me, I loved Lynch's philosophy and found the book really educational. To summarize, Lynch prefers buying directly from producers rather than negociants and a complicated wine to the big wines American blindly hold in high esteem. Lynch decries the modern methods that many wineries have adopted to save money and to appeal to the public's unsophisticated palate and fear of natural wines. For someone who has been brainwashed to think that new oak is always the way to go and that big, alcoholic red wines deserve the most praise, I found Lynch's book eye-opening and, well, relieving (I've never had much a palate for big reds).

Back to the subject of this post. I've worked on a preliminary list of producers to visit, many of which Lynch currently imports. The list is below, but I'd love to have you fill in the holes and send me your recommendations. The *'d ones I have yet to determine how to contact. Here's my list:

Chablis
Vincent Dauvissat*
William Fevre

Cote d’Or
Alex Gambal (Cote de Beaunes)
Louis Jadot (Code de Beaunes)
Maume (Gevrey Chambertin)
Robert Denogent (Maconnais)

Beaujolais
TBD

N Rhone
Thierry Allemand*
Guy Bernard*

I suppose I should also blog about my weekend's dining experiences. Friday night we went to Luna Park, where I had the worst mussels I've ever had, which certainly doesn't mean I didn't enjoy them. I like going to Luna Park because it has pretty good food, good prices, is fun for a group, and has a good bananas foster. We had a romantic dinner at Ana Mandera on Saturday night. I was a little concerned when I found out that the restaurant was opened by Don Johnson, but, fortunately, he sold it a couple years ago. The atmosphere was incredible -- the cozy bar upstairs had a jazz band and the spacious downstairs was reminiscent of colonial Vietnam, not that I've ever been there or am a fan of colonial-whatever. The food was solid -- my favorite item was my claypot fish, but nothing else is worth mentioning.

I'm signing off, but hope to hear from some of you soon!