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| Late Season Picnic Food with a French White Bordeaux - 9/21/2008 |
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| Menu
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Sausage Pan Fry
Roasted Vegetable Salad
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| Wine
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Chateaux Suau White Blend 2006
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| Comments
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In a festive mood to enjoy the warm weather, we created a late season picnic complete with screw-cap wine. Our bottle of French white table wine was a blend mainly of Sauvignon Blanc and Semillon grapes. Very light and somewhat flowery, I found it to be rather thin with a lack of acids that left it rather unbalanced. JJ liked the wine a lot better, saying it was clean and refreshing with good flavor.
The menu included two favorites done up for the early fall. Vegetables for a classic potato salad were roasted then combined with a flavorful citrus and herb dressing. Sausages--instead of being grilled in the bun--were cut up with fresh juicy tomatoes, onions, and peppers then sautéed on the grill in a big pan. Both dishes carried strong complex flavors that might be a problem to pair. However, our wimpy vin blanc came alive with both dishes. Though the wine was not a huge participant in the flavor category, the food really showed its subtle fruit flavors which combined well with every aspect of the meal. Even when we added garlic mustard to the sausage dish, the wine matched without a single bitter complaint.
Not very strong on it own, this non-offensive French blend proved to be a good table wine. I suspect it would match just about anything you would pair it with making it a good picnic wine to keep on hand. There is something special about a French wine on a picnic, especially when it has a screw cap!
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