Chateau La Graviére Cotes-de-Bourg 2003

As you will have noticed, our yearly delivery of fiddlehead ferns and ramps arrived yesterday. We will be enjoying these delightful vegetables at every meal until they run out. For the initial offering, we decided to keep things simple - Stephanie pan roasted pork chops and we prepared a delicious ragout of ferns, onions, and garlic in a natural jus. The ferns are rich and fragrant, tasting of the earth and of life itself (well maybe that's going a bit far, but they're really good).

We paired the dish with another installment of our Bordeaux 2003 tasting, this time from the lowly Cotes-de-Bourg region on the north side of the Gironde. Not to be confused with the wine of the same name made in Lalande-de-Pomerol, this La Graviére is made by Jacques Rodet and is the second wine of his also-unknown Chateau Brulescaille estate. For the low price tag (~$10), it was passable, owing to decent concentration of fruit and a reasonably harmonious balance. The nose and palate were dominated by raw green bell pepper and cracked black pepper notes coming from the healthy percentage of cabernet franc in the blend. Good, but certainly not the wine to introduce the ferns with.