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Joyeuses Pâques with Champalou Paired Pork Loin #Wineophiles

 

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This month to celebrate spring and Easter, Camilla from Culinary Adventures with Camilla, has invited the #Wineophiles group to share spring recipes and French Easter traditions. Rather than highlight a specific grape or region in France, she left the field wide open for us to feature any wine we wanted.

Join us on Twitter on Saturday, April 16 at 11 am EST / 8 am PST! Just follow the #wineophiles tag to join our discussion, whether or not you wrote a post for it!

French-ish Easter Traditions

I did a fair amount of Googling about French Easter tradition. In the Alsace where logical Germanic culture has some sway, the Easter Bunny brings chocolate. In the rest of France, flying bells do. If I may put forth a perhaps controversial opinion…the bells are strange. Not like a bunny makes a great deal of sense, but at least has paws to carry around the chocolate. The bell carries them…I don’t want to know.

On the food side, lamb seems to be the prevailing protein of choice in France. As in much of the US. My family did not eat lamb at Easter. Mostly because my mom doesn’t like and and refused to make it. We ate ham. Since we’re French adjacent, I figured our ham tradition was good enough! However, rather than my mom’s uninspired joint, I tarted up a pork loin.

I’ve been wanting to try a green chili and lemongrass pork loin recipe for a while and this seemed like the time! I thought that the lemongrass-ginger-kaffir lime leaf flavors would pair well with my wines. To continue the Indonesian recipe theme, I also made kaffir lime leaf red chili corn fritters. Roasted purple and sweet potatoes served with lime aioli and the inevitable cheeseboard rounded out the meal.

Champalou

While Domaine Champalou got its start “only” in 1983, Catherine and Didier Champalou both came from vigneron families with a long history.

Located in the Loire Valley in Vouvray, the Champalous work exclusively with Chenin Blanc. Or, as it’s known in their part of the world, Pineau de la Loire. More inland along the Loire, Vouvray enjoys a warm summer that lingers into fall extending the ripening season. High humidity in this area also promotes noble rot which Chenin Blanc takes to quite well. The Champalous have 21 hectares of Chenin Blanc planted on clay, limestone, and siliceous soils. They plant cover crops between the rows to help absorb excess water and encourage microbiotic activity in the soil. Which in turn helps them with their commitment to organic and sustainable viticulture.

I mentioned that Chenin Blanc takes well to noble rot…if planted in the right place, the grape can produce sparkling wines, wines that are crisp and dry, a little sweet, or botrytized. Champalou makes six different wines spanning all these styles. The family hand harvests all 21 hectares. Each of the six wines ferments with indigenous yeasts and malolactic fermentation occurs naturally (or not) depending on the vintage.

Champalou Brut Vouvray 

I’ve been able t to get no less than three! Champalou wines here in Turkey. But never the sparkling wine. This I found at one of my favorite wine bars in Athens (Materia Prima). Grapes for this traditional method sparkling wine grow in clay-limestone soils and come from vines averaging 20 years old. The must ferments in stainless steel and rests on the fine lees some time before blending, bottling, and second fermentation. Each cuvée is a blend of three different vintages. After the second fermentation takes place, the wine ages further on the lees for two years before disgorgement. While the dosage varies from year to year, the wine never has more than a maximum of three grams of residual sugar.

Pale green-lemon and vigorous bubbles in the glass. The nose immediately reminded me of mimosa flowers, crisp apples, stone fruit, and delicate pastry crust. Creamy mousse with pleasing dryness and acidity. More quince than apple on the palate with a swirl of honey.

The pairing? Yaaaaa with the green chili lemongrass pork loin! Pretty decent with the potatoes and corn fritters as well but it was really the ginger and lemongrass in the pork that made the pairing sing.

Champalou Vouvray, 2016

Like the grapes for the bubbly, these grow in clay – limestone soils. They are a bit older though, clocking in at an average 35 year old.

Must ferments in stainless steel and the wine rests on the fine lees for 11 months before bottling.

How to describe the nose … the Indian summers of my childhood spent in apple orchards while young hay dries under the sun. Floral notes in the nose twine with golden apples and the hay. The palate was broad but with crisp apple acidity.

A lovely wine. But it did NOT pair well with much of anything. Except maybe the lime mayo.

Spring recipes and wine pairings continue!

Don’t forget to check out what’s sprung up from the rest of the #winophiles!

• Celebrating Spring with Raclette and Rosé by A Day in the Life on the Farm
• French Spring Menu with Tavel Rosé & Cru Beaujolais by Always Ravenous
• Joyeuses Pâques with Champalou Paired Pork Loin by The Quirky Cork
• Roasted Salmon with Grilled Pineapple Pico de Gallo + Château D’Aqueria Tavel Rosé 2020 by Culinary Adventures with Camilla
• Woodfired Salmon Pizza with La Nerthe Les Cassagnes Rosé by Our Good Life
• We will also have posts coming from Vino Travels, Syrah Queen, and Wine Predator…Gwendolyn Alley. Stay tuned!