Le blog du Grand Jury

Wine Lover had hard times. Quite every good wine doubled in price over the last decade. And sometimes even more. So I am always happy when I find wines with prices of the good old days but with great quality. Recently I found a Champagne, a red and a white wine with textbook Quality-Price-Ratio. And these are the wines ...

I love Champagne. But as almost every world-class wine the good examples are expensive today. And I have the feeling that the quality of some standard Champagne is not the same as it was years ago. Is it the big demand for Champagne today? I don´t know but the Standard Cuvées of the big Houses seldom thrilled me recently. But the prices rise year after year anyway. So I started to search for a Champagne to a reasonable price with high quality. And finally I was successful. I drank a bottle of Jean Pernet Blanc de Blanc Grand Cru and was happy. This wine had a light golden colour and a very fine Mousseux - something very rare at this level. The nose was complex with pears, brioche and lemon zest. At the palate this had a creamy texture and a superb balance between freshness and fruit. Everything was at the right place. And the finish was really long. Indeed - this wine was more like a Vintage Champagne from a very good year and producer than a Standard Cuvée. I think it is one of the best regular Champagne I ever had. And the best news: It costs only 22 Euros in Germany.

I love Medoc wines. And while I know that Rollan de By, La Tour Carnet and others produce very good wines for reasonable prices I look for alternatives anyway. Some times ago I fell in love with a Cahors wine: Chateau Le Cedre Cuvée Prestige. I drank bottles of the 2001, 2002, 2004 and 2005 recently and they were all superb, marked by the vintage profiles and their terroir. This wine costs about 12 Euros and everybody who thought Cahors only is able to produce rustic wines should try a bottle of these. The Tannin is smooth, the wines balanced with a superb depth for this price category and a very good length. I think it is very difficult to buy a better bottle of wine for 12 Euros. Due to the vintage the 2005 is a real winner - young for sure, but accessible and probably still available. Chateau Le Cedre produces some higher priced wines too - one is called Le Cedre and no surprise it is wonderful. But the Cuvée Prestige is already great IMO. I think you won´t miss something when drinking a bottle of the Cuvée Prestige.

Beside the best Chardonnay of the world and some white Bordeaux Riesling is the favourite white wine worldwide. Some love pure Sauvignon Blanc as I do. And Grüner Veltliner from Austria. But a wine that is often overlooked is Pinot Blanc. Many German producers realized the quality this wines can achieve and the best examples are superb as food pairings. One of the best Pinot Blanc is made by Bernhard Huber, Malterdingen, Baden. I was at the winery recently and tasted their 2007 Pinot Blanc. Since I had quite every vintage of this wine so far and always liked it the 2007 version is probably the best they ever made. It is a rather full-bodied wine but with enough freshness and minerals too. In the nose you can find pears, peaches and a flowery element. In the mouth the wine has wonderful integrated fresh acidity and a lot of extract. The finish lingers for a long time at the palate. While these wines are already delicious after release they age beautifully for 5 or more years. I love this Pinot Blanc. It doesn´t see any wood - it is an expression of pure fruit. If you have the opportunity try a German Pinot Blanc. They always stand in the shadow of Riesling but that is a mistake.

Some other recommended producer of Pinot Blanc (there are many others):

Weingut Schneider, Baden

Martin Massmer, Baden

Dönnhoff (Cuvée of Pinot Blanc and Chardonnay), Nahe

Schlossgut Diel, Nahe

Öknomierat Rebholz, Pfalz