Organic wine match of the day: Marc Kreydenweiss Perrieres & 'kalbi jim' beef stew

 For the price (around $15), you would be hard pressed to find a red wine from anywhere in the world with as much dense yet perfectly rounded, juicy fruit, and fresh, earthy qualities, as the 2006 Marc Kreydenweiss Perrières, Costières de Nîmes.  The beauty of all this is that this smooth yet gutsy red is made by a winemaker who, for most of the past twenty years, was universally acclaimed for the quality of his white wines, made from grapes like Riesling and Pinot Gris.

The first turning point for Marc Kreydenweiss began in 1989, when he committed to transforming all of his estate owned vineyards in Alsace, France to principles of biodynamic viticulture; which he did with the clear purpose of breathing renewed life into his soils, and magnifying grape flavor and vineyard expression.  Simply put, naturally healthy soils produce not just healthy grapes, but also more intense, naturalistic wines having more expression of terroir, or “sense of place.”

The second turning point was in 1999, when Kreydenweiss ventured outside of his native Alsace (where he is a twelfth generation grower) to purchase a vineyard in the Costières de Nîmes AOC, just south of the Rhône Valley, for the express purpose of producing something he couldn’t effectively do in Alsace:  a deep colored red wine; grown, of course, biodynamically.

At the time when Kreydenweiss purchased his red wine property – called Perrières (the French word for fist sized “stones” -- re photo to the left -- which dominate Perrières’ terrain) – Costières de Nîmes was still part of the vast Languedoc appellation.  But because local growers strongly felt that the vineyards near the village of Nîmes bore a closer resemblance to vineyards of the Rhône rather than the rest of the Languedoc, they successfully petitioned the INAO to have Costères de Nîmes reclassified within Vallée du Rhône in 2004.

And indeed, Kreydenweiss’s ’06 Perrières – vinified from Carignan (60%), Syrah (20%) and Grenache (20%) – is not just bursting with the sweet, plump, raisined berry and bing cherry qualities common to Southern French grapes, but is also tinged with the type of wild, scrubby, resiny, woodsy garrigue, and charred meat aromas and flavors, often associated with classic reds of the Southern Rhône (like Gigondas and Vacqueyras).

Do biodynamics have a lot to do with this balance of pure fruit and goût de terroir (i.e. “taste of the earth”)?  If you ask Marc’s winemaker/son, Antoine Kreydenweiss, the relationship is direct (see a film interview of Marc and Antoine in my previous post on Kreydenweiss Gewürztraminer):  “By drinking a bottle of our wine, you can touch our soils, and also touch our family.”  And for the Kreydenweiss family, biodynamics is a living exchange between soil, vines, and custodian.

The easy food match for a wine like the Kreydenweiss Perrières is grilled beef tenderloins or brisket with rock salt and cracked pepper, maybe brushed with olive oil, or a dry rub of not much more than powdered garlic, onion, paprika, salt-N-pepa (hereIgohereIgohereIgo).  And you can’t go wrong with that.

But if you’re ready for an adventurous match that highlights the fragrant, earthy, sticky textured fruitiness of the Perrières, try this recipe for kalbi jim; a Korean style stew of butterflied beef short ribs (you can usually source the right cuts in Asian supermarkets, like Denver/Aurora’s H Mart on Parker Rd.), slow cooked in wine, juice and spices until the meat falls off the bone and the marrow reduces the broth into a thick, gelatinous sauce.  Sweet!

WINE BASICS #34:  Matching food with Southern French style reds

The entire premise of balancing Southern French style varietal reds and blends – Syrah utilized for its violet-floral, spicy, structural fullness, Grenache for its plush, mildly peppery, strawberry-like qualities, Mourvèdre for its dense, meaty texture, and Carignan for big bing cherry fruitiness – draws comparisons to the balancing of hot, sour, salty and sweet sensations typical of Asian style cooking.  Beef or pork ribs in sweet, salty, peppery, vinegary, spicy hot, and even downright sticky sauces tend to be problematic for Bordeaux varietals (like Cabernet Sauvignon and Merlot), but not so much for red wines composed of Southern French grapes.

The advantage of Southern French style blends is that their tannin is moderated enough so that they do not taste bitter even in the context of sweet, sour, salty or spicy food sensations, yet retain enough red wine phenolics to digest fatty meats. This opens the door for the peppercorn-like components natural to Syrah and Grenache to find pleasing flavor bridges in dishes that make additional use of chiles and other spicy ingredients.