La cuisine de Beaucastel

Last week I was lucky enough to once again spend a day tasting wines with Thierry Desseauve in Châteauneuf du Pape. And, once again I was lucky enough to have lunch with the Perrin family, in their kitchen.  "La Cuisine de Beaucastel", as I like to call it, is a magical place.  Filled with provençal charm, comfortable and welcoming. It's like being invited into the heart of the château, the family home.

Well, maybe I should back up a bit, because first of all Château de Beaucastel is a magical place in itself.  One of the top producers of Chateauneuf-du-Pape wines, arriving at Beaucastel, you immediately fall under it's spell. It's a place filled with a sense of history, a sense of importance and a sense that you are very lucky to be welcomed into a world that is not accessible to everyone. We were soon greeted by Marc Perrin whose charm and sincerity immediately put you at ease.  We started off by tasting through all of their 2006 varietals separately.  That is to say before they are blended; viognier, bourboulenc, clairette, grenache blanc, roussanne, cinsault, counoise, grenache noir, syrah and mourvèdre.  How often to you get to taste bourboulenc, clairette or counoise all on their own?  It's a great exercise in understanding the complexity of the blending process in Chateauneuf du Pape.  Then we moved on through the Perrin Family wines which are wines that come from a large range of vineyards that they own throughout the southern Rhône Valley. From Côtes du Rhône and Vinsobres to Vacqueyras and Gigondas, the family produces many high quality wines at very reasonable prices.

Now back to the kitchen... This is the second time I've had the honor to eat with the Perrin family. The previous time was also with Thierry Desseauve in January.  I had wanted to write about it then, but I didn't have the nerve to ask them to take pictures. This time though, Thierry's wife Nadine was along, and she was happily snapping photos, so I felt like I could do it too!  Now you can imagine just how wonderful it is...

A couple of years ago the Perrins decided to hire a chef to help them create a series of recipes and food and wine pairings to go with their "Perrin et Fils" wines. The idea is to develop recipes that can easily be reproduced by their customers at home to go along with their wines.  When the Perrin family decides to do something, they do it right.  They hired Laurent Deconinck who worked at none other than Lucas Carton in Paris for 5 years! Laurent is an amazing chef who has such a gentle personality , you wish he would sit down at the table and join in the meal.  Alas, he is a true professional and stays behind the counter preparing everything down to the tiniest detail.

In January,  truffle season was in full swing, so we started with a hot Aigo Bouido, a Provençal soup made with whole cloves of garlic, a simple, but perfect,  omelette full of black truffle shavings, followed by a salad of mache, shaved raw beets and more truffles! We finished with a roasted quince with orange peel and sage.  Heaven.  This time we again had the Aigo Bouido, followed by tuna tartar with preserved ginger, soy sauce and pink peppercorns.  They were discussing the recent addition of the pink peppercorns, which really made the flavors of the wine come out.  The main course was roasted porcelet (piglet) with a purée of potatoes and bay leaf.  As if we were still hungry, all of this was followed by a perfectly ripe Banon (local goat cheese aged in chestnut leaves).  The best thing though, might have been dessert, Choquettes, or cream puffs that have little chunks of sugar on top, freshly whipped cream and strawberries. (You can see him preparing them in the background)  We all ooohed and awwwed, quickly finished our plates, and wondered secretly if there were more.  Luckily François Perrin (above is Jean-Pierre Perrin), Marc's uncle asked, and magically a whole basket of them, a bowl of whipped cream and the rest of the strawberries were placed on the table before us.  I'm not sure how you say "dig in " in French, but that is what we all did.  That, is the magic of "La Cuisine de Beaucastel" ...

Comments

[Marc]

Thank you Amy for this great post.
It was a pleasure to see you again.
Take care
Marc

[daddo]

I'm jealous. What a great day!

[William Patton]

Yummy ! Makes my mouth water just reading about it. I really enjoy your blog. Keep going !

[Terry Hughes]

OK, kid, NOW you're living the dream, my version of it at least. Wow!