Chateau de Fonsalette holds a special place in my heart because this was my gateway wine. When I first tried it I had just started working in a French fine dining restaurant. A French wine importer happened to be there, talking to the chef, and I overheard him say "This wine smells exactly like olives!" I looked up at them from my set-up work because I had never heard of a wine that smelled like olives. He saw my curiosity and offered me a taste. It really did smell like olives-- I couldn't believe it. From that moment on, anytime a dish had an olive component I'd recommend this wine. It was the start of my love of food and wine pairings, and that first whiff of Fonsalette really helped to reveal this concept to me that the aromas and flavors of wine could enhance the food on the table. That night I went home and started to research the Rhone Valley, and that is pretty much how the serious part of wine appreciation started for me. After that, when I smelled any wine I began to mentally catalogue the aromas and imagine what food I'd want to have with it.
The other night I was at Corkbuzz with my friend and fellow sommelier Molly (follow her on twitter if you want to read hilarious sommelier posts @Mollybrains), and naturally, I felt nostalgic when some people we had made friends with at the other end of the bar offered us a glass of Fonsalette. This was the 2007 and it made me remember those Halcyon Days of my early wine education as I stuck my nose in the glass and that familiar smell of tapenade rose up.
Chateau de Fonsalette came into the most recent part of its history when Louis Reynaud purchased this property in 1945. The Reynauds are famous for Chateau Rayas, their Chateauneuf du Pape property owned by their family since 1880. Today, Luis' grandson Emmanuel Reynaud runs their properties, and Emmanuel oversaw the production of this 2007 Fonsalette. Oh, did I mention they have olive trees all around the Fonsalette vineyards?
Chateau de Fonsalette, Reserve 2007 (Cotes du Rhone, France)
Tapenade, memories, and tapenade.
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