This Month, we present a Chardonnay that will complement your holiday table - Ch de Puligny Montrachet St. Aubin, premier cru, En Remilly. This is one of my favorite wines - from a great village in the Cote d'Or section of Burgundy.
For those with detailed vineyard maps, it's an open secret that Saint-Aubin's En Remilly vineyard is just up the hill from the famed Le Montrachet. This partly explains the top quality wines from producers like de Montille, Lamy, Amiot Guy, and Puligny-Montrachet. Until the 1980s it was difficult to plant vines in the vineyard due to the large stones and even boulders spread across the fields. Since then the arrival of mobile stone smashing machinery has facilitated vineyard plantings.
This bottling has a nice thread of minerality running through it, and is drinking very nicely. The wood is extremely subtle, with pretty white flower and pear suffused nose serving as the perfect introduction to round, pleasant and energetic flavors that possess moderate depth on the solidly long and notably dry finish. Reminiscent of a Chassagne Montrachet, at a fraction of the cost.
The commune of St. Aubin is known primarily as a source of exceptional Chardonnay, often equal in quality to wines from the Cote de Beaune’s most famous villages. The village is high above most of Burgundy, really at the beginning of the arrière côte, or back country. The village is also at the extreme southern tip of the Cote d’Or, only one top-quality wine making village (Santenay) is farther south. Limestone is common in these sites, and the wines often have a pleasant stony flavor.
There are 70 villages in France called Saint-Aubin, all in honor of a bishop from Angers in the sixth century. The one on the Côte d’Or is hidden in a valley behind Puligny-Montrachet and Chassagne-Montrachet. Even if Saint-Aubin is only two kilometers away from its mighty neighbors, it has been neglected for a long time.
Two thirds of the production is white wine and it is mainly this that has given Saint-Aubin a boost in recent years. Very often white Saint-Aubin can be a very good alternative to the more well-known, and more expensive, wines of the Côte de Beaune. There are as many as 20 premier crus and with a number of lieu-dits this makes a total of 29 different names that may be used on premier cru bottles.
About Ch de Puligny Montrachet: Located in the heart of the village of Puligny-Montrachet, arguably the greatest chardonnay producing area in the world, lies the Château de Puligny-Montrachet. This estate possesses an array of vineyards in the Côte de Beaune that has instilled envy in its neighbors for the past century. In the mid-1980’s the Thevenin family sold the estate to a large French bank who proceeded to renovate the property and produce decent, commercially popular wines for the next fifteen years. The current director of this bank (Caisse d’Epargne) is a wine-lover, and in 2001 he hired Etienne de Montille to take over the reigns at the estate. His mandate was to put the Château de Puligny-Montrachet back on the map as one of the great producers of the Côte de Beaune.
No expense has been spared in either the vineyards or the wine-making. The viticulture systems of the entire 19 hectare estate are in full transition to bio-dynamic farming. This, although costly in the short term, will eventually bring the vines back to a healthier state that was once common before the influx of chemical treatments in the vineyards. For example, the continual plowing of the vineyards (rather than using weed-killers) has already brought the very positive effect of added drought resistance. The idea here is that by plowing the top-soil, the roots are forced to plunge deeper in the earth to seek their nutrients. This, during the record-breaking heat of 2003, proved to be the difference between making well-balanced wines or not as those vineyards that were plowed fared far better than those who were treated chemically.
The modern winery built in the 1980s, although not as attractive as many old burgundy cellars, has proved to be almost perfect for making wine in the minimalist, gravity flow method that Etienne prefers. In addition, only indigenous yeasts are used and the wines are no longer fined or filtered. The preference is to allow a longer barrel-aging period so that the wines will settle naturally.
Etienne de Montille's influence: In the fall of 2001 Etienne de Montille began taking over the reigns of the Domaine de Château de Puligny-Montrachet, an estate with one of the most prestigious array of vineyard holdings in the Côte de Beaune. He was in charge of the wine-making that fall and on January 1, 2002, took over full control of the estate. His goal is to produce wines from these magnificent vineyards that will rank with the very best of the region. As a prototype for the white wines from this estate, he uses the Puligny-Montrachet “Le Cailleret”, which his family estate in Volnay has been producing since the 1993 vintage. This has become one of the most sought after wines from Burgundy because it balances the de Montille obsession with purity of fruit and terroir with the glorious richness and power that the Chardonnay grape is capable of showing from vineyards in this small corner of the world. One need not look far for what the reds will be like over time as Etienne is one of the most respected of all red Burgundy producers. His first moves after taking over were to transform the vineyard practices by beginning the transition to biodynamic farming. The fruits of this change are already evident in the 2002 wines. All of the wines are now the result of fermenting with the local, indigenous yeasts. The wines are lightly fined with egg whites, and bottled un-filtered. Stirring of lees is actively pursued where appropriate.
Recipe: Roast Pumpkin Soup with Spiced Pumpkin Seeds Serves 8
This soup is a concentration of fall flavors and spices. The creamy pumpkin, the spiced seeds - sweet and savory. Serving the soup in a carved out pumpkin is an easy way to complete the dish and impress your guests.
Soup:
* 5 tablespoons unsalted butter
* 1 cup sliced onion
* 2 cloves garlic, chopped
* 5 pounds Kabocha squash or Japanese pumpkin, peeled, seeded and diced
* 5 cups chicken stock
* 1 cup heavy cream
* 3 thyme sprigs
* 1 tablespoon black peppercorns
* 1 bay leaf
* fine sea salt freshly ground white pepper
Garnish:
* 1 large pumpkin (about 12-inches in diameter)
* 2 tablespoons butter
* fine sea salt and freshly ground pepper
* spiced pumpkin seeds (see recipe below)
* herbed crème fraiche (see recipe below)
Preheat oven to 400°F.
Melt the butter in a large pot over medium heat. Add the onions and garlic; sweat until translucent, about 3 minutes. Add the diced squash and sauté until softened, about 10 minutes.
Cover squash with the chicken stock and bring to a simmer. Cook until tender, about 30 minutes.
While the soup is cooking, prepare the large pumpkin to serve the soup from. Remove the top of the pumping with a sharp knife in a zig-zag pattern. Scrape the seeds out and season the inside of the pumpkin with salt and pepper, add the butter and roast in the oven until tender and lightly caramelized, about 30 minutes.
Puree the soup in batches, in a blender until satiny smooth. Pass through a fine chinois to remove any remaining lumps. Return the soup to the pot and add the cream and bring the soup to a simmer.
Wrap the thyme sprigs, peppercorns and bay leaf in cheesecloth and close with kitchen string and add to the simmering soup. Infuse for 10 minutes. Remove the thyme bundle and season to taste with salt and pepper.
Serve the soup in the roasted pumpkin. Garnish with spiced pumpkin seeds and herbed crème fraiche.
Spiced pumpkin seeds:
* 1 tablespoon butter
* ½ cup raw pumpkin seeds
* ¼ teaspoon cayenne
* ¼ teaspoon toasted ground cumin
* ¼ teaspoon toasted ground coriander
* fine sea salt and freshly ground pepper
Melt the butter in a sauté pan, add pumpkin seeds, cayenne, cumin and coriander.
Toast the pumpkin seeds over medium heat until golden brown, stirring frequently.
Herbed Crème Fraiche:
* 1 cup crème fraiche
* 1 tablespoon chopped parsley
* 1 tablespoon cut chives
* 1 teaspoon freshly crack black pepper
* fine sea salt
* Mix all of the ingredients together.
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