Heading into the Sixties

As I stand on the precipice of this next decade, I've decided to make a run at writing about my 60 favorite wines. (KT was quick to point out that often it's the one I'm holding at the moment.)  It was  my intent to start on the actual day of my birth, but tonight this  plan was pre-empted by a 1996 Cahors.

I spent the better part of Sunday cooking up a cassoulet.  I've always wanted to make one and this recipe seemed achievable, even for a middlin' cook like me.  Although the end result would not be featured on the cover of any fine dining rags, it is a country stew, after all, and in that regard the results were a stunning success.

What to drink?  I initially planned to open a CdP that I picked up at a very reasonable price from Vinopolis, but glanced briefly at the "What to Eat with What you Drink" book and "they" suggested that Cahors was the quintessential match.  OMG were they right!  We had the "old" cahors in the basement (I believe it was the Clos de Coutale from Kermit Lynch) and this seemed like the perfect time to give it air.

Absolument!  It was spectacular. The wine married with the food so well that I didn't think to "analyze" it.  It just went down seamlessly with the cassoulet and describing it would be like trying to pick out one of the spices that melted into this wonderful recipe.  I know that I tasted fruits - dark, perhaps cranberry - and herbs - exotic, subtle and perhaps asian - and maybe some resinous wood, but on the whole the wine and food were an inseparable experience and amongst the finest combinations that this mouth has tasted.

A few years back, we were at a wine tasting at the old Noble Rot.  Cahor was featured in the lineup and the person leading the tasting said that cahors was best drunk young and not built for aging.  We happened to bring a ten year old cahors along for the fun of seeing how it matched against the class offerings.  It literally stole the show.  Here again tonight, and a little bit older, the proof in the glass is that you can never tell too much about wine.  It surprises and it pleases me to no end that the FIRST of my 60 favorite wines is Cahors: a simple country wine that carries the elegance of the french countryside and its people. Especially memorable because we gazed at the devil on the bridge in 1998, my first trip to France.  Let the tastings begin!