There are a number of wines people may notice popping up for encores on our wine pairing menus.
Not just types or styles of wine – some repetition there is inevitable – but particular bottles from favorite producers. Wines that have a generally strong affinity for our cuisine but that are also unique in some way and perhaps have a story we enjoy sharing with our guests. Things we are glad to have discovered and which we enjoy enough to revisit from time to time.
One such favorite that comes to mind is the Au Bon Climat “Hildegard.” I first encountered Jim Clendenen, the “mind behind” ABC, a dozen or so years ago. At that point I knew his wines pretty well, I had been selling and serving them for at least a decade, but he came in one night for dinner during my days as a sommelier at Le Français. I was impressed by his knowledge and passion, in particular regarding the wines of Burgundy. I started to pay more attention when I encountered him at tasting events, and came to better appreciate the talent and integrity of his own winemaking.
Click the above image for a sample of our Au Bon Climat 1999 “Hildegard” Tasting Notes
I remember in our early days of matching wines to Grant’s food at Trio, I stumbled across the Hildegard and paired it with a dish we were serving at the time. It is indeed a unique and delicious wine, but also something fun to talk about. The wine is named for the second wife of the French Emperor Charlemagne. Apparently the famous white wine vineyard in Corton owes its name to the Empress Hildegard’s preference for white wines: they didn’t stain the fair-haired Charlemagne’s beard. Jim’s story further speculates as to her general concern about red wine spillage around the palace, and how she used her influence to have white wine grapes planted in the previously red-wine only Corton vineyard. Whatever the true history may be, the significant point is that Chardonnay is in fact a relative newcomer to Burgundy; through medieval times the important varietal in the region was Fromenteau, an ancestor of Pinot Gris. As a tip of the hat to the likely earliest white wine plantings in Corton, Jim blends Pinot Gris with Pinot Blanc and Aligoté – two other varietals with long historical roots in Burgundy.
The next time I saw Jim, I let him know how much we’d enjoyed pouring the Hildegard, quizzed him for more information about that wine, and commented that the vintage we’d used seemed to be showing very well for the few years of extra bottle age it had. He agreed that the aging potential for the wine seemed excellent, and let me know that he was setting some aside for that reason. He invited me to contact him in case we’d like a supply of an older vintage.
Click the above image to view a sample of the Wild Turbot Recipe Notes
More recently at Alinea, I couldn’t resist revisiting the Hildegard on our pairings here, and the wild turbot featured in the initial Oenophilia subscription release was a wonderful dish with that wine. Again, the local distributor had a vintage that worked well for us. However, when we started putting together the selections for the wine club release, I gave Jim a call and we talked about back vintages he had available at the winery. He sent me some to sample, and we absolutely loved the way the 1999 was showing. He was kind enough to make some available to us, and we were very proud to have included it in the lineup. Here is a link to the notes included in that subscription package.
I think the Hildegard is a terrific wine; a wonderful project that we are happy to be able to showcase in this manner and hopefully help draw attention to. We are especially pleased to have secured some additional supply of that 1999 vintage to be able to offer as a featured winebar selection!
Au Bon Climat 1999 “Hildegard,”$44
Tags: Aligote, Alinea wine pairing, Au Bon Climat, Hildegard, Pinot Gris
