The small, regularly rising bubbles apparently feel very comfortable in the glass and form a fine layer of mousse on the surface. Generous and seductive in the nose, with delicious fragrances of peaches, orange peel and grapefruit. On the palate, it unfolds an amazing floral character, almond blossoms but also fresh almonds, supported by fine, lemony acidity. Despite its low dosage (5 g / L sugar), the wine shows surprisingly medium-bodied and creamy mouthfeel, which makes it an excellent aperitif wine.

Without preference for MEAT or VEGETABLES, it may be enjoyed without food, but may also be accompanied by grilled almonds or a piece of cheese, such as a 24 month-aged Comté, a Cantal Entre-Deux or a young Grana Padano.

Burgundy is widely recognized as the wine region, that made Pinot Noir to what it is today: The probably most noble grape variety in the world! Worshipping its taste and flavors has driven winemakers to spread the grape variety around the globe, and to mainly grow it in cool, Burgundy-like areas: New Zealand, Victoria and Tasmania in Australia, Oregon in the United States ...Therefore, probably not any reasonable person would get the idea planting Pinot noir in the Minervois with its Mediterranean climate. And yet it grows there...



Pierre has planted his Pinot noir vineyard many years ago. Just for the love of the grape variety and the wine. And ... it grows, making shoots, leaves and pretty grapes every year! I admit that the first years were not easy. Due to the rocky, dry terroir, he had to wait five years to pick the very first grapes, instead of the usually three years. But it was worthwhile to wait. Now, the vines seem to have found balance under the Mediterranean sun for some years, producing delicate, fine wines.

Last night I opened a bottle from the vintage 2010. A pure Pinot Noir, fermented in open vats and matured in oak barrels. A touch of old leather on the nose, mixed with fragrants of sweet cherries and some spices. Soft and round on the palate, with fresh acidity and a hint of sweetness. Pleasant length, beautiful perfume, the taste buds really enjoy!

As a side dish for CARNIVORES & HERBIVORES, I recommend to have look at all sorts of medium-mature soft cheese. Or why not try a simple chocolate cake with cherry-liquor flavoured whipped cream?

Seven years - that’s a good moment to taste a wine, which can be stored for 10 to 15 years. Halftime. The first half of the game is up, time to make a point and to develop a strategy for the upcoming years: drink soon or continue ageing?

2009 applies as a sunny vintage, perfectly reflecting in the bouqet this blend of 90% Malbec and 5% Merlot and Tannat. Powerful and exuberant, the aroma of black cherries, mint and bay leaf seems to jump right out of the glass... Completed by hints of raspberrie marmelade and the smell of fresh pastries, I would characterize it as a “winter fragrance”,.

On the palate, sweet spices are showing up, emphasizing the gentlemanlike character of the wine: straight, fresh and smooth. The tannins seem to have been tamed by time, friendly tickling the palate. They accompany the wine on the long, fresh final, gaining in strength and depth. Mint flavors leave a fresh aftertaste. Enjoy it from 2016 to 2021.

FOOD MATCHES FOR HERBIVORES: Try a gratin of root vegetables (carrots, potatoes, parsnips) or serve the wine as an aperitif with lukewarm vegetable chips (parsnip, carrot and beetroot!).

FOOD MATCHES FOR CARNIVORES: Simple and tasty dishes, such as a calf Kottelet with red wine sauce or a steak with juniper butter. And sauté potatoes!

There are several ways to discover a restaurant.

A) By listening to friends and colleagues, who praise the ambience and the food of a place they went to last weekend.
B) Through an extensive analysis of comments and pictures on the Internet. Just like it suits in the third millennium ...
C) You drop rather casually into a restaurant, because the business meeting of this morning drags on and you change, for practical reasons and for the purpose of food, to a nearby location.
D) By chance (rare).

For us, the Naka, a Japanese restaurant in Avignon, is a typical C-case. And since then we can’t let go..
First of all there is the place, a room full of poetry. Natural stone walls, fine silk kimonos and large, zeppelin-like lamps, hanging like glowing bubbles over heads and tables, instantly driving the mind into a certain state of peace. We advise to settle in the back room of the restaurant, at one of the two spacious tables, where you actually may take off your shoes (which is not an obligation any more) in order to feel a little more “like at home”.



As to the composition of the food, the kitchen focuses on the essentials, setting accents of flavours and treating the ingredients with respect: Perfectly cooked rice accompanies the sweet, stewed eggplant “Naka-style”, seemingly simple Sushi hide surprising flavours, exemplary tempered sashimi melts on the tongue. With three words: simple, light, good!



For your thirst, there’s fresh beer, even iced in summer, but also a beautiful, manageable list of wines from the Rhône Valley. Those who like to keep it authentic may also opt for Sake, warm or cold, or choose one of the various teas on the menue. Afterwards you will be pleasantly satieted and feel relaxed, a nice break during a normal day. Please smile, you’ve just savoured a delicious meal...

To get an answer to this quite snobbish sounding question, we have contacted Olivier Bompas, a highly regarded French sommelier, journalist and wine writer. Because after having allowed yourself to spend a small fortune on this strange, rock-like Fungus, you should better avoid to botch it up in your kitchen…

“Truffles are an extraordinary food that is rather used as a spice. Their taste is extremely strong and delicate at the same time,”he says on this coveted mushroom.

Among the truffle classics we’ll find of course the famous “eggs and truffles”, to which Olivier recommends reds from rather cool wine regions: Burgundy, Côte Rôtie, Gigondas or Malbec from Cahors.

“With truffles you have to keep it simple. And never forget that it doesn’t like to be cooked. However, they love fat, with which they willingly share their perfume.”

If one considers these principles, your food-and-wine imagination will almost know no boundaries! Try a round, oaky white wine from Lirac for example, matured for several years in the bottle, with truffled Brie de Meaux or scallops with truffle butter. But even a strong, spicy rosé may provide great taste sensations. However, according to Olivier, the non plus ultra of sweet sins is bittersweet chocolate fudge with truffle cream, accompanied by a sweet wine in Porto style.

"Simply stunning! »

I admit, the question seems somewhat exaggerated. There are other varieties at least equallyworthy of the title: Shavkapito from Georgia, Grüner Veltliner from Austria, Folle noir from Fronton ...

Sauvignon blanc (by the way Cabernet Sauvignon’s mother, after a volatile affair with Cabernet franc) has long been planted in the Loire and in the region of Bordeaux. Meanwhile, the SavBlanc also does very well in various IGPs, formerly called “Vin de Pays” in France. You may say that SANCERRE is its highest decorated Ambassador, and SAINT BRIS in Burgundy its best kept secret. New Zealand has given a certain “HYPE” to the variety, and it remains the Sauvignon-Star in the Southern Hemisphere without discussion. For the rest, the grape has settled down in all wine-growing regions which hold something up, and has almost become a brand on its own.

Perverted to swank wine

Mostly fresh and crispy on the palate, the perfume of Sauvignon is often described with words like “broom, boxwood, grapefruit, passion fruit or smoke and flint.” In many cases, people may refer to “cat pee“which could be translated as”the crude version of broom, boxwood, grapefruit, passion fruit or smoke and flint“. An aromatic grape variety does a lot of screeming in the glass and selfsufficiently asks”did you see my muscles?" A behaviour that’s somehow difficult to bring in accordance with “elegance” and “sophistication”. By the way, this applies to the same extent for Muscat and Gewurztraminer.

But now I love him!

But don’t worry! The good, generous, tasty and great Sauvignon Blanc exists! Often embarrassed by his intrusive bouquet, I had to learn to enjoy it. For this, I have confronted my nose an palate without hesitation to Sauvignon blanc wherever I could find a bottle: Pays d’Oc Sauvignon, Sauvignon from Germany and New Zealand, produced in South Africa and Italy, on the Loire or in Burgundy, in the Spanish Penedes or in the French Entre-Deux-Mers… I have (almost) tried them all, to finally arrive at the following conclusion: If as a grape variety you show such aromatic force without fear of being absurd, you actually are a bit crazy. But, if Sauvignon b. is grown in the right place and crafted by the right hands, it really is a great variety.

Jean-Louis Bersan, vigneron in Saint Bris, once told me the following: “Finding finesse and elegance in a wine made from such an aromatic grape variety, is the proof that it’s basically about much more than just an aromatic grape variety...”

It’s the most modest champagne of the winery. You may call him the basic wine, the entrance to the wine range, the little brother of the great wines ... Call whatever you want, it just doesn’t care with nothing to hide. It is like that. Sincere, open and honest. He is a blanc de blancs, therefore produced exclusively from Chardonnay, a blend of two vintages (2009 and 2010), fermented in steel tanks and matured ten meters below ground in the cool chalk cellars of the winery for 36 months. A nose of red currants, lemon and fresh grass, lively on the palate, finely fizzy and with a long finish. Its crisp acidity easily gets along with the 10 grams of sugar added during the Dosage, without even a hint of heaviness coming up.

Whether you are a meat addict or rather plant eater, this Champagne perfectly matches to your moods and desires: To an aperitif, that asks for lightness and freshness in the glass, to accompany various fish and seafood dishes, cooked or raw, to sushi of course, but also to raw ham, creamy goat cheese or caramelized apple pie. Trust your palate and trust the wine, both will tell you when harmony is missing.

In the nineties, the wine world was very different from now. While in 2015 the whole world runs after minerality, freshness and lean wines, you would rather have tried to transform the massive sound of NIRVANA into wine, to impress the audience and critics some 20 years ago: Overripe grapes, massive extraction, 12 to 24 months aging in new oak barrels ... Wine making according to the motto “more is ALWAYS better”!

Ironically, the last year of the millennium did not meet these expectations. People said it was a cold, rainy and rather small year and they were all glad to leave the century right after. But they were wrong, of course. Just as the world of wine is always and continously wrong, when classifying wines like cloth sizes: large, medium, small ... As if all winemakers, vineyards and bottles in the world would bend to this rough classification…

But let’s return to our Syrah from the year 1999. It is a varietal wine, fermented and aged in wood, not only showing dense flavors, but somehow also managing to unite the entire minerality of its terroir in the bottle (believe me, “minerality” already existed in 1999). What does it look like? Slightly cloudy eye, rather orange than red. Fine, perky nose of prunes, cocoa, cinnamon and cherries. Also some pipe tobacco. Velvety mouthfeel, tannins as delicate as lace, remarkable acidity, bringing in zest and strength. An endless finish, in which sweet bourbon vanilla joins the bouquet.

FOOD MATCHES FOR CARNIVORES: Roasted game birds or smoked foie gras. Nothing else!
FOOD MATCHES FOR HERBIVORES: A non-salty black olive tapenade, chocolate with an extremely high cocoa content and low sugar, a fireplace.