Beaujolais Blanc 2014 Domaine du Vissoux €23.50 from Terroirs, Donnybrook.
To some older wine drinkers the very word Beaujolais brings back memories of cheap and nasty Nouveau from days long past. These days Beaujolais is a very different animal.
The good guys produce excellent light, refreshing wines with mouth-watering red fruits. They are brilliant wines to drink alongside charcuterie and lighter foods. But how many of you have tried white Beaujolais? It does exist, and can be very good indeed.
Beaujolais Blanc is made from Chardonnay. Wines Direct in Mullingar have the delicious Terres Dorées from Jean-Paul Brun for €18.95. It is one of my all-time favourite white wines that is guaranteed to win over anyone who thinks they don’t like Chardonnay.
But this week we look at one from Domaine du Vissoux. Pierre-Marie Chermette and his wife Martine (above) are one of the very best winemaking teams in Beaujolais. Not only do they produce superb examples of the top crus of Beaujolais – Fleurie and Moulin-a-Vent – alongside delicious Beaujolais Villages, vivid sparkling wine and wonderful crème de cassis, but they make a seriously good age-worthy Beaujolais Blanc.
It is medium bodied with pure, luscious peaches and apricots wrapped around a core a refreshing acidity. I had my bottle with hake and a herb butter – perfection. And by the way, the Chermettes also make excellent Beaujolais Nouveau; Terroirs in Donnybrook will have it on tasting on November 19th if you fancy trying out the real thing.
Anchor Steam Beer, San Francisco €3.20 for a 355ml bottle
The Anchor Brewing Company was one of the very first craft breweries in the US, and inspired the generation that followed. The story goes that, having barely limped through most of the 20th century, Anchor, which can trace it roots back to 1896, was about to finally close its doors in 1965.
Then Fritz Maytag, heir to a washing machine company, arrived to see the brewery. He bought the company and provided the blueprint for the thousands of craft breweries that followed over the next five decades. Innovations included a Porter, an IPA, Liberty Ale, and a Christmas ale, beers now standard in the lineup for virtually every craft brewer. In 2010, Maytag sold the company to two San Francisco entrepreneurs, Tony Foglio and Keith Gregor, who promise to keeps things pretty much as they are.
Steam beer was a name applied to beer made during the gold rush in San Francisco. Using very basic facilities, brewers began making a beer using lager yeasts. But lacking any method of chilling, the beer fermented like an ale. There are various versions of why it came to be known as steam, but Anchor now has copyright on the term. Other versions go by the term Californian Common.
Anchor Steam is copper in colour, medium-bodied with a smooth bready maltiness and a lightly bitter hoppy finish. So tonight, why not raise a glass to one of the original craft beers?
