John Mahoney Drinks Wine

Sometimes simply by serving three wines all at once, and comparing which one best matches the meal, you can change an ordinary evening dinner into a night to talk about the next day and again at other similar meals.

Rhone wines are all ideal food wines. I opened the 1990 Domaine Le Couroulu Vacqueyras (at 25 years old) with a 1998 Comte de Lauze Chateauneuf-du-Pape (at 17 years old) and a (20 year old) 1995 Cote-Rotie “Brune et Blonde” Rhone wine from M. Chapoutier who is synonymous with the area, for no other reason other than that I found them sleeping on a back shelf in my cellar.

All were excellent scoring 16+, a 17+ and an 18 respectively, on the 20-point Dionysian Scale. They are costly going up in price from $24 to $45 to over $100, but you can’t take it with you. They were served and lined up in the order listed. The Vacqueyras was at its peak with black pepper, smoke, and spice. It matched with a grilled beef dish. The Chateauneuf-du-Pape was bigger, and this Grenache-based wine was also a perfect match. Hints of strawberry and bitter cherry rose through the spice and herbal notes.

The Cote-Rotie, however, was the best!

The name of this wine means the “roasted slope” and it was from a set of single vineyards called the blond and brunette vineyards because of the colors of the soils there. Centuries ago, the Lord who owned the vineyards, left the Cote Brune to his dark-haired daughter, and the blond daughter got the Cote Blonde. Just 5% of the vineyards there are planted with the white Viognier grape that’s added to the single variety Syrah to make the wine. White pepper, raspberry, vanilla, licorice, and herbs are featured in this beauty.

Sipping back and forth through the three glasses slowed down the meal and made the evening dinner a special treat.

In vino veritas.