#combier

Les Grands Boulevards.

Sirops et liqueurs : Un Nirvana cordial

Les liqueurs : un Nirvana sucré… Senteurs étonnantes, persistance aromatique, variétés des arômes dus à l’incroyable mosaïque des ingrédients composent le bouquet des liqueurs. Elles sont singulières, uniques, multiples. “Tendances” ou disgraciées selon les périodes : après avoir souffert d’une image vieillotte, leur côté vintage plaît à nouveau sur un marché tiré par la mode des cocktails venue…

cooking with Combier Triple-Sec.

Cleaning out my inbox and found some of the recent write-ups from Chris Deegan, Nopa Wine Director. I am enamored with these two glass pours so decided they should get some air time. These notes were adopted from Deegan. 

2009 Domaine Combier Crozes-Hermitage  

Domaine Combier is one of my favorite Rhone producers. This is a statement of consequence since Syrah is one of my favorite grapes. This wine is a perfect balance of freshness and concentration. I would write something about it, but Chris does so succinctly and perfectly with this write up. 

Combier Crozes Hermitage 2009

 This wine is 100% syrah.  It is fermented in stainless steel and then transferred to well used oak (3rd or 4th year) where it undergoes malolactic fermentation.  The fruit here comes from a variety of plots, but primarily from vines planted in 1956 on their original rootstock.  2009 was a warm year - the wine shows that with dark, chocolately, grapey aromas and a lot of color, but the palate retains freshness and spice.  There is black and white pepper as well as violet. 

The concentration of the wine is incredible - especially considering it is 12.5 alcohol.  Quite amazing really.  It is beautiful syrah.  We also carry the top cuvee from this producer, the Clos de Grives - the only difference in vinification is that the Clos de Grives sees about 25% new oak.  It is also a single vineyard located next to Graillot. For more info, read here.  We sell the Combier for 14/gls

    Huet Vouvray Petillant 2005

Nopalese are familiar with this Domaine and this wine.  Huet is an iconic, maybe THE iconic Vouvray producer.  We currently carry the 2010 Le Haut Lieu Vouvray sec on the bottle list.  This new wine is also 100% chenin blanc but made in the method ancestrale style. (For a long time we also had the Balivet Bugey Ceredon, which was also produced in this method, though with much different outcomes. Bugey was alot fruitier, and even less frizzante. Very delicious, though). 

The wines here ferment to dryness and then a small amount of a sweet wine are added as the *dosage.  In this case it was the 2002 Le Mont Premiere trie. We also recently featured the Solter Sekt from the Rheingau used an auslese riesling from the same vineyard as dosage.  Pretty cool.  It is easy to appreciate the sense and advantage in using a sweet wine from the same terroir as opposed to using commercial grape sugar or even liquid cane sugar as some houses do. This style of making sparkling wine results in a slightly lower pressure, so a softer wine; Less carbonated, if you will.  

 Huet farms biodynamically and have been certified bio since the 80's.   They have three vineyard sites - Le Mont,  Le Huat Lieu and Clos du Bourg.  They also have some vines not within these 3 distinct terroirs. Some of the fruit for the petillant comes from these other plots. There is an extensive write up on the Domaine here  

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A fresh new week and a fresh batch of Shaker Faces! Round Four of Portland Cocktail Week's Shaker Face-Off brings us Chris Churilla from del Alma Restaurant and Snugbar, Stevi Deter from TwoattheMost.com, and a duo from Beaker and Flask, Sal Corpuz and Dave Shenaut!

The Finalist Round will be announced on Friday, November 19th! So remember to come back often to vote for your favorite.

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