Category: Food

A look at some wines from Provence

It’s summer and the beginning of sunflower season in New Hampshire! Sunflowers evoke thoughts of Vincent Van Gogh and his painting of the bright, robust flower. Van Gogh painted sunflowers 11 times, with seven of those paintings executed while he was in Arles, in Provence. Van Gogh found the area to his liking, with its sunshine and bright colors. He created some of his greatest work in the short 14 months he was in Arles.

Marseille provided Julia Child with experiences that ran counter to those of her residency in Paris. Julia and Paul Child’s Parisian friends thought Marseille “a rough, crude, southern” place. “But it struck me as a rich broth of vigorous, emotional, uninhibited Life — a veritable ‘bouillabaisse of a city,’” Paul said, according to Julia Child’s My Life in France.

The cuisine of Provence is decidedly different from Parisian cuisine; it’s founded on olive oil and garlic and an abundance of fish and fresh vegetables. It borrows from its Italian neighbors but remains decidedly different from them.

Provence is rich, if not as sophisticated as Paris. It covers a wide swath of territory from the Alps and Italy to its north and east to the Pyrenees and Spain on its west. It was the first region conquered by the Romans beyond the Alps. For a time, it was home to Popes at Avignon. Its coastline with its blue water is called the Cote d’Azur, and its film festival at Cannes is world-famous. With its warm climate and the fragrance of lavender and citrus, it is no wonder the perpetual season of summer of 300 days of sunshine along the coast lures many to visit, and some to stay.

With these notable differences in climate and cuisine from the rest of France, it is expected that the wines of this region would also differ greatly from those of parts north. Provence is known for the production of rosé wine. Rosés are produced throughout France, but the rosés of Provence are unique in their character and structure.

Our first wine, a 2019 Château D’Esclans Whispering Angel Côte De Provence Rosé (available at the New Hampshire Liquor & Wine Outlets at $22.99), is a blend of grenache, cinsault and rolle (vermentino), an Italian white grape identified by its French moniker, rolle. The grenache and cinsault impart their spice-fruit to the wine, while the rolle adds floral and citric notes to the blend. The color is an almost clear very pale peachy pink. To the nose, there are slight floral, lily-like notes, along with some citric. To the tongue the same is carried through with a very slight orange peel coming across the tongue. This is a light wine of 13.5 percent alcohol, created by Sacha Lichine. His 2006 acquisition of Château D’Esclans, located northeast of San Tropez, has resulted in building a world-class brand and providing a strong contribution to the popular growth of rosé wine. Sacha is the son of the renowned Alexis Lichine, who was instrumental in the rebuilding of the wine industry destroyed by World War II, as well as the author of The Wines of France, published in 1952. This wine has a pedigree all but surpassed by the expertise of the generations who created it. It can be sipped on a warm, sunny afternoon, or paired with a light supper of a green salad, dressed with cheese and fruit. Doesn’t that sound like what Provence should be?

Our second wine is a classic, a 2017 Château Beauchêne Châteauneuf-du-Pape Grand Réserve (available at the New Hampshire Liquor & Wine Outlets at $37.99). It is a blend of 80 percent grenache, 10 percent syrah and 10 percent mourvèdre. The color is deep ruby red, the nose is of raspberries and spice, tampered with the sweetness of vanilla. To the tongue it is rich in flavor while remaining dry and slightly leathery from the tannins. There is a good dose of red fruit: cherries and plum, with a slight earthiness that makes this an ideal accompaniment to grilled meat, especially lamb. Château Beauchêne is owned by Michel Bernard, whose family has lived in Orange, just North of Avignon, since the 17th century. Today Chateau Beauchêne has become the hub for the vinification and maturation of all the cuvees from the different vineyards owned by the family. Three appellations are represented over their 175 acres: Châteauneuf du Pape, Côtes du Rhône Villages, and Côtes du Rhône.

These are two exceptional wines worth considering for your pretend visit to Provence. Enjoy them on the patio with your favorite Provence fare!

Featured photo: Courtesy photo.

I deeply distrust economics.

Yes, I acknowledge that economics provides some convenient answers, but I don’t really trust it. It’s like the character in a movie — always shot with shadowy lighting — who supplies the hero with important information. Everything seems on the up-and-up, but something about the whole exchange makes you realize that she really isn’t on the hero’s side. When things fall apart badly in the third act, you nod your head and tell your eye-rolling date, “Yup, thought so.”

Economics pretends to explain a great deal about human nature, but once you make peace with the concept that money is imaginary and economics is arbitrary, everything sort of falls apart.

“Why is such-and-such worth so much money?”

Because that’s what people agree it’s worth.

“Janitors and farm workers do work way more important than CEOs; why don’t we pay them more?”

Because we don’t want to.

Totally. Arbitrary.

And yet — OK, have you ever made an impulsive purchase or invested a lot of time and money in something that ultimately hasn’t worked out? Hobby supplies or a disappointing vacation or a boyfriend — that you kept around or stuck with long after they ceased to be rewarding?

You or I might call that Poor Judgment, but economists have a name for it (because of course they do): the Sunk Cost Fallacy. The idea is that we don’t want to “waste” all the money and heartache that we’ve put into something unproductive, which makes sense on an emotional level but isn’t actually terribly logical. That money and effort are gone, no matter how you feel about it. Investing more time in Bradley or shelf space on scrapbooking materials doesn’t make much sense if they aren’t going to fulfill you.

Which brings us to triple sec.

It is a sweet, low-octane, vaguely citrusy liquor that 99 percent of us have around because of that time we were going to make a pitcher of margaritas, but we forgot to buy limes, and then we had a series of hard weeks at work and ended up drinking all the tequila one slug at a time, directly from the bottle, in lieu of sending ill-advised texts.

Anyway, an economist would tell us to throw away the triple sec; it’s just taking up shelf space. Marie Kondo would ask you if it was bringing you joy, which — let’s face it — it isn’t at the moment. It’s really hard to envision a scenario where you are lying on a polar bear rug in front of a fire and purring, “Hey baby, let’s drink some triple sec.”

Let’s give Marie — and the polar bear — a break, and stare the economist in the eye and let him know that yes, in point of fact, we are using that triple sec.

The Firecracker

3 1-inch cubes (~45 grams) of fresh watermelon
1½ ounces golden rum
1 ounce triple sec
½ ounce fresh squeezed lime juice
¼ teaspoon cayenne pepper

Muddle the watermelon thoroughly in the bottom of a cocktail shaker. It will surprise you how easily it dissolves, like it’s been waiting for an excuse to completely fall apart. Better it than you.
Add ice and the other ingredients. Shake until very cold.
Strain into a coupé glass.

Drink several of these while watching Wall Street Week in Review and shouting “YOU DON’T KNOW ME!” at the TV.

Surprisingly, it is the watermelon that takes a back seat in this cocktail, providing color and a vague fruitiness. The rum is great — rum is everybody’s friend — but is there mostly to bridge the different varieties of sweetness. The stars of the drink are — again, unexpectedly — the triple sec and cayenne. Citrusy sweetness and in-your-face spiciness don’t seem like they would work together, but they do. That’s yet another mystery that economics can’t solve.

Featured photo: Courtesy photo.