Cazin romorantin and cave aged gruyere

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Have you ever tried a rare romorantin? The grape is a little off the beaten path. But that’s good.

From Cour-Cheverny in the Loire, the Francois Cazin, Le Petit Chambord 2005 is an attractive wine–excellent balance between acid, minerality, and subtle tropical fruits. Sort of splits the difference between chenin blanc and sauvignon blanc. It’s limited availability, as you might imagine since romorantin is hardly made by the tanker, but I found this bottle for $15 (find this wine).

Then I paired it with a piece of “cave aged gruyere” from Trader Joe’s. It was one of those wine-food pairings where you take a good wine and a good food and make a great pairing. A Ratatouille moment, if you will.

One question for you: is cave aged gruyere from Trader Joe’s really aged in a cave? (or just come guy’s basement?) What are the norms of production on that? The greatest cave aged cheese, Roquefort, doesn’t even bother mentioning that it was aged in a cave. So I’m suspicious…I want pictures of spelunking regulators! And while we’re talking terms, what’s up with “vendages manuelles” (hand harvests)?

This entry was posted on Thursday, January 24th, 2008 at 7:30 am and is filed under French wine, food and wine, wine picks. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

Jan

2008

4 Responses to “Cazin romorantin and cave aged gruyere”

On January 25th, 2008 at 12:44 pm ,Paul Arthur wrote:

Gruyère is aged in a cave-like environment, though not always in an actual cave. Some producers (such as Kaltbach) do their aging in actual caves, and I would expect any labels to that effect would be truthful.

On January 29th, 2008 at 5:11 am ,mon(t)rouge wrote:

I’m fond of François Cazin’s wines. Especially, his Cour-Cheverny “Cuvée Renaissance”, which is demi-sec. The Cheverny, red, is also very interesting and well balanced.

On February 1st, 2008 at 5:25 pm ,eric wrote:

Cave Aged Gruyere is indeed aged in a cave, albeit a human-modified cave. As a cheesemonger, I certainly suggest comparing a regular :Gruyere Reserve” against a cave aged version. With often similar prices, the taste is quite different.

On February 3rd, 2008 at 11:29 am ,john wrote:

“Vendanges manuelles” isn’t very romantic sounding, but it’s useful to know the grapes are hand-picked in this age of industrialization where machine-harvested grapes and the resulting “products” are all too common.