Belleruche White Cotes-du-Rhone by M. Chapoutier- 2011
I love this wine. I love this wine label. I love to drink it. I love to cook with it (you should always cook with wine you would drink). I love the story behind it. I love the wine maker. And as I said in other posts, I love blends (thankfully white blends are making a splash in glasses all over the country right now. Look for them at your favorite restaurants and wine shops).
BACKGROUND:
The label is fancy and delicate with elegant cursive fonts that swirl and whirl like the wine in the glass and of course you will notice the regal M. Chapoutier crest centered toward the bottom, much like most French wine labels. However, this one is a little different. It contains Braille and like all the other wines that Michel Chapoutier makes it has a story just as lovely as the wine inside the bottle.
Michel believes the people of the land where the wine grapes are grown are just as important to the expression of the wine as the terroir, climate and other combined factors that go into production, which is why the next story is important.
It is written that Maurice de la Sizeranne was born in Tain, a village located within the Rhone-Alpes region of France. He was born in 1857 and went blind when he was 9 years old. After finishing his education at a school specifically for blind children, he went on to become a professor of the very same institute. His passion was concentrated on reading literature and helping other blind people read as well, which led him to founding the Revue du Braille. Maurice helped perfect this abbreviated Braille system widely used in France today and became one of France’s top philanthropists of the time.
Michel sources his fruit for his Monier de la Sizeranne, one of his most famous wines, from the parcel of Tain that Maurice’s family lived on. As a tribute to one of the most fascinating people who lived on and from the land, Michael designed labels to include Braille. It took him more than a year to develop a printing press uniquely for the purpose of printing the Braille wine labels and the first vintage to bear the new labels was in 1996.
Since that time all subsequent bottling of all Michel’s wines have included the legendary Braille label.
In a beautiful quote from, http://belleruchewines.com/braille-labels/,
“This noble gesture is one of the ways that Michel expresses his love and devotion for the terroir of his land — by paying homage to one of its most famous sons. And it represents his desire for all persons — regardless of the challenges they face — to be able to enjoy his wines and the land where they are produced.”
TASTING NOTES:
Color: Pale yellow
Grapes: Grenache blanc, Clairette and Bourboulenc (most Cote du Rhone wines are blends)
This wine is bright and viscus. One swirl in the glass and you will see what I mean. There is a great punch of acid at 13-13.5% that I absolutely find delightful in my mouth. This wine is full of aromatics and a white fruit nose. I got a lot of Bartlett pear in the mouth with a great long finish.
Drink alone or use in baked fish dish like I did for dinner with fresh herbs, white fish and lemon. (Recipe in next post)
Wine maker notes: M. Chapoutier converted all of his estates to biodynamic growing practices in the early 1990s. This specific wine was grown on land with clay and calcareous soils.
PRICE:
$12 at Whole Foods
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