SHANNON GOES FRENCH

"C’est La Vie. Baguettes. Edith Piaf. Nice. Paris. Amelie. Café au lait. These are some of my favorite French things. And this week, I think I can officially add le vin.

Although I’ve always had an appreciation for French wines, I don’t know if my prior drinking experiences truly would merit me proclaiming that I love French wines, given the fact that while I know the ins and outs of the French wine-making world, I haven’t really gotten to try a whole heck of a lot.

That has not been the case as of recently. It seems that I have been up to my neck in Burgundy, Bordeaux, Chablis, Cotes-du-Rhone. (Not to mention Pinet and Cotes-du-Thongue.)

This sudden influx of vin francaise on my “thongue” strikes me as somewhat paradoxical. Wine Spectator recently ran an article entitled, “Millenial Divide”, in which it calls attention to the strange fact that while the French still drink the most wine per capita, there is a growing number of youth that don’t drink wine at all. They choose to drink other alcoholic beverages. One young adult interviewed said that while she valued wine for the French culture, she and her friends very rarely drank it.

So there you go. The millennial divide between France’s old and young becomes an ironic continental divide between France and the U.S., where people 21-29 are largely becoming the biggest consumers of wine.

So, some of my favorites from the land of La Tour d’Eiffel? Always a fan of white burgundies, Christopher Buisson Saint-Romain 2006 has that classic French Chardonnay feel to it, without over doing it on the minerality and flintiness. I love that it’s a Chardonnay that can be refreshing.

Another wonderful wine is Domaine Ligneres Cabanon de Pascal 2003. It just has that je ne sais quoi factor. I was fortunate enough to try a plethora of the Domaine Ligneres wines. If those aren’t enough to make you yell, “J’adore le francaise!”, I don’t know what will."