A tasty Pineau d'Aunis

[Scoop]

An obscure Loire red grape used mostly for rose', Pineau d'Aunis can make an nice, quaffable varietal red wine, too. A recent, stellar find: the Thierry Puzelat 2004 Touraine Pineau d'Aunis, a peppery, piney delight, sporting wild berry fruit, plenty of zip and some pleasing tannins on the back end. A perfect red for (a slight) chilling, this was a huge hit at a family gathering Down South -- normally not a big wine-drinking bunch -- and it really sang with the pulled pork, hickory-smoked pit BBQ, which is, of course, West Tennessee's great contribution to world cuisine. Well, there's also fried catfish, I guess (and my aunt's baked beans!).

Cheers,

Scoop

[This message has been edited by Scoop (edited 08-03-2006).]

[Innkeeper]

Sounds like a great wine and a great time!

[TheEngineer]

Thanks for the heads up. Sounds like a great summer wine!

[wondersofwine]

Pulled pork from the pit--I thought that was a North Carolina invention (not Tennessee). Regardless, a funny story: Our new Epispocalian priest, was scurrying around the church in the early morning hours of the day to get a pig ready for a barbeque and the police thought it was someone breaking into the church! After he convinced them that he was on legitimate business, they helped him carry the pig to the pit since his helper had not shown up. Also, when Bishop Daniel was installed for the Diocese of East Carolina (Fayetteville and points east of Raleigh to the ocean), they had a pig picking on the campus of East Carolina University. Bishop Daniel came to North Carolina from a position in Rhode Island. Some of his Rhode Island friends invited to the "pig picking" wanted to know what this "pig licking" was. (Well, they're not far off--it's so tasty that you do a lot of lip licking, just not licking the pig directly).