The Dark Arts of Cahors and Maury

One of my pleasures in life is coming up with ideas and menus for wine tasting dinners.  Everyone who attended Tongham Tasters or our Tongham Village Hall dinners will recognise this. However, we now live in France and time had come to come up with our first wine tasting dinner in our new house in Maintenon near Chartres..  Having been introduced to good Cahors by two very good cavists in Plaisir and Bourges and having bought a very old vintage bottle of a dessert Maury the idea began to gel.   As usual the idea was mine but execution rested on my charming wife Jane!   Having selected our more than willing participants from Belgium and France the game was on.  A date was set for 31st January 2015.  Below is what we tasted:

The five very good bottles of Cahors that formed the heart of our dinner party

Cahors is a dark wine from the south west of France and the main (or sometimes 100%)  graoe variety is Malbec, sometimes also known as Cot or Auxerrois.  If you taste a good one you will be hooked.

Hélène and Jane show off my menu

A champagne toast at the start of our meal

1st course was a Jean Laurent Blanc de Noirs Champagne served with a walnut, honey and chutney pannacotta

2nd Course was a Chateau La Reyne 2009 Cahors with Bayonne ham and figs

I really love the modern style Cahors of the Chateau La Reyne.  They have a range to cover all budgets but L'Excellence is very nice indeed.

3rd Course was a Chateau La Reyne 2005 Cahors with blinis, beetroot, smoked eel and horseradish

4th course was a modrn style Garbure served with a 2004 Clos Triguedina Cahors

Rex pours our chef Jane some more Cahors during the Ban Bourguignon.  Oh dear!

5th course was a 1999 Prince Probus Cahors served with a Canard Parmentier (Duck Shepherds Pie)

A lovely and complex Cahors wine

The Chateau Triguedina Prince Probus was my favourite Cahors of the evening.

6th course was an assortment of nine cheeses and a 2001 Chateau Lamartine Cahors

The Chateau Lamartine is a quite modern style Cahors and was much appreciated by many of our guests.

A rather special wine for our dessert!

The Maury is a French "Vin Cuit" and is very similar to a vintage port.  I loved its chocolate friendly acidity and caramel notes.  Despite being so old it was wonderfully fresh.  If you can't afford a 1929 Gerard Bertrand, try a more recent Mas Amiel Maury.  Our cavist recommended some Thyme infused chocolate from a great Chocolatier in Bourges which worked very well as did Jane's dark chocolate mousse.

1929 Maury and a delicious dark chocolate mousse

Congratulations to our chef Jane!

Café "Toulouse Lautrec" to finish our evening

I must admit to some help in selecting this menu from the excellent web site of Fiona Beckett.

Thanks to Brigitte, Hubert, Solange, André, Hélène and Rex for being our guests for our first Maintenon Wine Tasting Dinner.

Specials thanks to our cavists for providing the wine:

Le Caveau des Plaisirs in Plaisir (The Chateau La Reyne)

La Cave des Beaux Arts in Bourges (The rest)

Extra special thanks to Jane (aka Madame Thermomix) for executing the menu so well

Roll on our next wine tasting dinner!

The photographer John Etherton asserts his copywrite to the pictures in this blogpost.   Only the attendees of this dinner may share them elsewhere on the web without permission.