I wouldn’t know the taste of a gooseberry if one jumped right into my mouth – but that’s what an old wine reference guide told me expect from a good Sancerre.  However, I’m getting ahead of myself.

I should start with a little background.  I was in Tosca the other night with a friend, polishing off a nice bottle of Chablis.  It was ice cold, dry and full of flavor.  Just as perfect as an introduction to dinner as it was part-way through it. 

As we worked out way through the bottle, however, my friend said he felt like something else.  He was having chicken and polenta.  I was, for the first time in my life, having something that didn’t even have a hint of meat in it:  roasted vegetables.  The Sancerre, he said, would be good with both our meals.

For those of you who are unfamiliar, Sancerre – like Burgundy – refers to a region rather than a grape.  Now, I’ve had Sancerres before, most of which were in the $25 range off the shelf.  They were always good – tart, balanced and mouth-filling.  After all, the French have been doing the Sauvignon Blanc thing for a long time. 

Sancerres aren’t the slap-you-in-the-face, mouth-full-of-just-mown-grass style of the early Cloudy Bays from New Zealand.  To illustrate:  if Cloudy Bay and its hundreds of (often poor) imitators are brass bands, then Sancerres are more like Mozart concertos – but still, I hadn’t had one to sing hosannas about – yet.

Back to the Sancerre my friend and I tried.  Our server brought the bottle to our table and poured a tasting into both of our glasses.  We twirled it, sniffed and sipped.  That’s when I sat up a little straighter in my chair.  “Pay attention, pal,” the glass seemed to say.  “You’re in for a treat.”

The wine was a 2006 Les Monts Damnés from François Cotat.  Cotat and his brother Pascal are two of the most respected wine produces in the Loire Valley, and this particular wine blew the Chablis out of its ice bucket.  Pay attention, indeed.

So we ate, we sipped, we marveled.  But there was a problem.  Each time my friend spotted someone he knew, he called them over to offer them a taste.  And he knew a lot of folks.  And no one refused. 

I could see myself not getting another taste.  Then, as the wine level slowly lowered, he told me that I must take some home to give my wife a taste.  And my fears were realized:  she’d get the last of the bottle.

But before she got home, I went to my wine reference to see what I could see about Sancerre.  Gooseberries, it said – the really good ones often remind you of gooseberries.  Great.

When my wife got home, I told her about my evening and poured her the last of the wine as we stood in the kitchen.  And then I waited.  “Hmmmm”, I heard.  And, moments later, “Hmmmm, that’s delicious.”  “Yes,” I agreed.  “Isn’t it?”  Another moment, another sip.  “It has a lot of character,” she said.  “As if it were experienced.”

And then all I could think was that she should have been writing this instead of me, because she hit the nail on the head.

Try Sancerre for yourself at both Tosca and Levain – and check back soon for more of Bud’s musings on food and wine.