Macon La Roche Vineuse Chardonnay - Pour Le Kir Parfait

Always the quest to find good Creme de Cassis, and ANY Blanc Aligote from Bourgogne in order to make a Kir.

While I have yet to find either in the U.S., I was able to make a decent Kir with the Macon La Roche Vineuse Chardonnay. I think with a better Creme de Cassis I will have nailed the art of making a Kir in Milwaukee.

The vineyard has limestone-rich soils... So I am interested to try this without the cassis mixed in next time.

Vin de Bourgogne 2005

Alain Normand

Holy Cow Chardonnay - I got a soft spot, dang it!

"Holy Cow, is this bad. But a good back up for fondue-making if you would rather spend $12 to boil your wine and put cheese in it."

That was going to be my first review... until I decided to check out their website: www.charlessmithwines.com, and develop a conscious. Dang it! Remind me not to do that. They are from Walla Walla Washington, and have really cute pictures and pretty convincing commentary about their wines.

Furthermore, I'm not a white drinker. So, who am I to judge. After checking out their other wines, I got excited to try some of their reds - notably the syrah. However, all I have here left to taste from them is Kung Fu Girl, which is a Riesling. Why I bought it is another story, for another post.

Holy Cow Chardonnay 2006 (I would bash it, but I'm not going to)
Charles Smith Wines
Mattawa
Washington

P.S. I think it's funny how they felt the need to say "Washington State" ... I really never heard anyone say that until I went to the east coast, when there was a need to differentiate it from Washington, as in D.C. This is probably because the Charles Smith is from Scandinavia, and not from the west coast, where we assume Washington is a "state".

$10.99 (on sale for $8.99) at Sendik's in Franklin

Trader Joe's French Market Chardonnay - go FONDUE!

Trader Joe's French Market Chardonnay 2006 (but really ANY vintage will do).

This is my go-to wine for making traditional swiss fondue.

• 2 cups Trader Joe's French Market Chardonnay
• 1 pound Swiss Emmanthaler Cheese, shredded. But I try to get as much as I can, 1.1 pounds is better than 1. (It goes to "eleven".)
• some Trader Joe's crushed garlic
• some flour

1. Smear bottom of pot with the crushed garlic - just a light layer.
2. Heat the wine (Tailinh, the fatal flaw I never could figure out was that the fondue all goes to crap if the wine is too hot - like if it is sort of boiling - so just heat HOT, but don't boil)
3. Mix shredded cheese with flour - just a few pinches of flour to lightly coat the shredded cheese - but not a full coverage - be somewhat lazy about it. Just don't over do it. I'm not sure what would happen, but that's my advice.
4. Slowly add cheese to wine, stirring in a figure-8 with a wooden spoon.
5. Once all melted, pour into fondue pot and eat... with a Trader Joe's or La Brea Bakery or Panera Baguette. Or any baguette for that matter.

I'm not really claiming this is an authentic recipe, but seriously, it is just a pot of cheese.

It's maybe $4.99/bottle. Drink the leftovers when you're making dinner the next night.