Tag Archives: Macon

Mini-reviews 88: Four white wines for the end of summer

four white winesFour white wines for the end of summer.

Reviews of wines that don’t need their own post, but are worth noting for one reason or another. Look for it on the final Friday of each month.

• Château de la Mulonniere Chenin Blanc 201 ($15, sample, 12.5%): Premiumized wine — $10 or $12 worth of French white from the Loire region, but almost too soft and without enough of the steeliness that marks the Loire style. What’s the point of that?

• Château de la Greffière Mâcon La Roche-Vineuse Vieilles Vignes ($20, purchased, 13%): Impressive French white that is a couple of steps up from my usual Macon-Villages, with more depth and less racy apple fruit, though still tasting like the chardonnay it is. There is even some oak, making this more of a food wine.

• Montefalco Bianco 2014 ($20, sample, 13%): This Italian white blend, made with two Italian grapes and one-quarter chardonnay, is complex and intriguing. It’s not the usual short and simple Italian white, but has layers of white fruit and spice, plus some very integrated oak. Not for those who want a basic pinot grigio, but worth trying if you want to explore Italian wine.

• Villa Pozzi Grillo 2015 ($10, sample, 12.5%): Annoying focus group white that has very little to do with Sicily and the grillo grape, but lots to do with making something that tastes like sauvignon blanc for the U.S. market. Internationalization run amok.

Wine of the week: Cave de Lugny M con-Villages 2012

Wine of the week: Cave de Lugny M con-Villages 2012One of the most amazing things about the Golden Age of Cheap Wine is that it’s amazing despite the dollar’s weakness against the euro. Its decline, dating to the beginning of this century, has increased the price of European goods by as much as 20 percent, and cheap wine has mostly followed suit.

Case in point are the French wines from Cave de Lugny, a growers’ cooperative in the Macon region in Burgundy, which makes some of the best grocery store whites in the world. The catch, thanks to the weak dollar, is that they aren’t priced like grocery store wines these days, costing $15 or more. Which is why I haven’t reviewed a Cave de Lugny wine in three years.

Which is also why the Wine Curmudgeon was so excited to see Lugny’s Macon-Villages ($10, purchased, 13%) at this price. And, frankly, I should have bought more than one bottle. It’s a chardonnay that is always dependable and always varietally correct, made in the traditional Macon style — no oak. That means some lemon and green apple fruit, lots of crispness, and a very clean finish that hints at the minerality of a more complex wine.

Serve this chilled with almost any white wine dish. And if you see other Lugny wines, like the Les Charmes, for $10 or so, don’t hesitate to buy it. You can enjoy it while pondering the mysteries of exchange rates and international banking.