Muscadet madness continues! Chateau de la Ragotière, SAQ tasting and complimentary oysters

This is my fourth consecutive Muscadet post and it still might not be the last.

Now that months with Rs are gearing up to full speed, oysters are increasingly in season. And where there are good oysters, there are of course Muscadets to be had, including at this event, which is tomorrow (Friday).



These two wines are both worth checking out and scooping up. We're talking seriously good values. My buddy Bill's got the word on the Ragotière Muscadet (looking forward to trying it myself for the first time) and I had the Vin de pays Ragotière Chardonnay this afternoon. It's a lovely varietal with real character and a light deft touch. Very soft and elegantly enticing with finesse not common for a VdP varietal at the $13 pricepoint.

Ragotière is welcome addition to my list of strong value wines from unheralded French designations. You can see blog labels like Unoaked European Wine, Organic Wine/Food, or many of the appellations found in the sidebar for more great values. Or search this site for "vin de pays" for an overall view of VdP bargains.

Colourful cottage wines and Brumont Gros Manseng/Sauvignon 2006

           
When I was asked to pick out the four best "cottage" wines -- inexpensive, chillable wines built for enjoyment with food and on a shoestring budget -- I put together a basket of these four. It turned out that they were the wines with the most colourful labels you could possibly assemble while browsing the aisles at my wine shop.

Coincidence?

I promise you I didn't buy these wines because of their labels, but clearly people do. The people I shopped for said that each on went down beautifully. But did they do it blind? Could they have been swayed by the pretty labels set out before them? Though we are in the middle of Wine Label Week here at Doktor Weingolb I am sorry to say that we may never know.

What we do know is that this sunny foursome of a flight started off with what must be the value wine of the summer: the Brumont Gros Manseng/Sauvignon Vin de Pays des Côtes du Gascogne 2006 -- it's the green one at the left.

It's anything but green. A nose of lemon meringue pie; a palate of grass and citrus that is pulled down by une trame de gras, or a perceptible layer of fattiness, without coming off at all oily. This wine has admirable balance, and in between, presents nice acid and weight with that smidgen of fat and sweetness on the finish.

I think this wine lacks minerality, though many people have called it mineral. Not in my books. But in my books, there's nothing wrong with not being mineral. So this wine is a bit of a cream puff, at its core I get a strong musky confit which punctuates the wine but doesn't diminish its soft, gentle and somewhat subtle elegance. Simply astounding for what was the cheapest wine of the bunch!

Pair it with a buttery or rich breaded chicken dish supported by greens or garden fare. Or have it as the best aperitif you can buy with a dozen dollars and change.

But you don't have to take my word on it.

THIS SUMMER, PEOPLE WHO LOVED A COLOURFUL GREEN LABEL

• Joe does


• The Georgia Strait does


• A BC blogger does


• Vin Québec aussi!


• Somebody writing in Oregon


• and Gang of Pour too

There are no doubt other favourable reviews I encountered during the summer for this Brumont, a wine that is better than ever (and which just HAPPENS to have a newly designed label this year... yes, it is a coincidence -- there's no established link between pretty labels and good wine.)

Click on the other cottage wine bottles across the top of the page for reviews of previously released vintages. Each of them in their latest version is delicious (except for the Syrah rosé which I have never tasted and cannot not really vouch for other than to say that it sports the reliability and great pricepoint often wielded by wines bearing the Fortant name -- now that's how to read a label! The Fortant label alone is why I bought it for my cottage-bound friends.

How far does your wine budget go?

A lot of people have the impression that shopping at the SAQ, (Société des alcools du Québec, the province's liquor board) costs more than the LCBO (Ontario's Liquor Control Board). Well, those people are right. Differences in provincial tax rates do mean Quebeckers have to pay a little more for their Yellow Tails and their Little Penguins.

(Higher tax on mass-produced Australian wine such as Yellow Tail is not a bad idea. Unfortunately, that tax is not levied on the basis of an ill-advised choice -- it's just that in some cases, when a Yellow Tail Shiraz purchase becomes prohibitive, there's a silver lining to it.)

Tax is the ultimate whipping boy for the grumbles of wine lovers in Quebec so let's look at other factors that raise the prices of bottles in Quebec. One is that SAQ excels in selection, especially in its wines, which amounts to a cost to consumers. But when you consider what greater variety gives the consumer, higher prices are not necessarily such a raw deal. All of this is a generalization though. There are many competively priced wines at the SAQ, often mid-range or higher-end items. Plenty of them are bargains when you start comparing the list prices to those of other outlets. Once you start shopping for bottles in the twenty-dollar range, you will find many reasons to cancel your Ontario border run for the Hawkesbury haul.

And on top of all of that, some prices actually go down. I should start supplying examples at this point or else you are not going to believe me. Here then are two highly recommended white wines that are reliable products year in and year out. And this year, the SAQ has chopped about a dollar off the ticketed price. The LCBO does not stock them. They are the Maculan Pino & Toi ($16.70) and the Dourthe No. 1 blanc ($15.95). Each one possesses a smartly etched mineral flavour and a delicate aromatic range. The Maculan is a blend of Pinots and Tocai; the Bordeaux is 100% Sauvignon Blanc. They are both sophisticated and great values. And finally, something for red wine lovers...

Jorio Umani Ronchi Montepulciano d'Abruzzo 2002, a very rich and delicious red wine, remains sale-priced across the province for only one more day, so eliminate any time in consultation and get it fast. At $16.20, you will not be disappointed.