Rasteau and Lamb Chops

Tonight, it was lamb chops--mostly, my usual way--with lemon-garlic-oregano marinade, and a nice sauce. As usual, they were good. Paired with Israeli couscous, and some fresh spring asparagus, a yummy dinner.

But the real star was our wine, an amazing southern Rhone pairing, a Rasteau. It was an Ortas Tradition, Cave de Rasteau Cotes du Rhone Villages Rasteau. This wine, at $12, drinks more like a $25-30 bottle. It's a wild, rustic, big wine, with good fruit and tons of herb and garrigue. We've got a couple more bottles, and I think some age would provide a bit of nice mellowing, but it's nice now, too. Think about mixing raspberry, blackberry fruit notes, a ton of brambles, herbs, some stony minerality. This is the first 2007 southern Rhone that has blown me away, and I'm now reserving judgment on the vintage to try out some more of these slightly better wines.

For my dear readers (all one or two of you, if that?) who are confused by the long naming... it goes something like this: It's from the Southern Rhone wine region of France. Within the So. Rhone, you have the more or less "entry level" wines that follow national laws--the Cotes du Rhone. This is a village level wine, so that's a step up--in other words, around the village of Rasteau, there's enough unique about the region to give it a unique designation, but it's not at the level of its own AOC, such as a Chateauneuf du Pape or Gigondas (two of the best regions within the southern Rhone). Broadly within the southern Rhone there are 13 allowable grapes. This Rasteau is dominated by old vines grenache (40-80 years old) bringing tons of mineral notes and bright fruit, along with some syrah (or, if you got it from Australia, Shiraz), bringing spicy and peppery fruit, and some mourvedre, a deep, dense wine with more brambly, garrigue notes. That's a grave over-simplification, so be aware of that.

Anyway, a really nice dinner and wine pairing. Yay!