The Wine Leading the Blind: All Things Burgundy, and Kir Royales
One of this issue’s themes is all things Burgundy — check out Burgundy 101 for more on that front — and if it’s a fabulous, bubbly summer cocktail you crave, Burgundy’s the right place to go. Many restaurants in Paris and Dijon serve gratis aperitif cocktails. More likely than not, these take the form of the famous kir or kir royale.
A kir is a refreshing aperitif of dry white wine with a splash of crème de cassis. A kir royale is the same, but uses Champagne. I tend to prefer the effervescent kir royale as a late-afternoon cocktail or an aperitif.
I serve kir royales if I have a dinner party of six or eight people as a way to get things started — they’re usually well-received and disappear within half an hour.
Ina Garten, in her Barefoot in Paris cookbook, suggests making kir royales with good Champagne. For once, I actually disagree with her. Being a wine snob and Champagne lover, I don’t want anything corrupting the nuanced elegance of a good bottle of Champagne — even Burgundian crème de cassis. I suggest finding a bottle of cheap dry stuff — Cristalino Cava Brut comes to mind — that you can buy in quantity but blends well with the cassis to create a refreshing and easy cocktail.
Kir Royale
Ingredients:
- Champagne, dry sparkling wine or dry white wine
- Crème de Cassis, such as Chambord
Drizzle the inside of some Champagne flutes with half an inch of the Cassis (it’s not an exact science). Fill glasses with Champagne and garnish with a raspberry. Watch guests suck them dry.
Comments
By Lauren McNally
Lauren B. McNally is a New York based consultant and freelance writer who spends most of her free time exploring culinary and oenological pursuits with friends. She originally hails from Maine and graduated from Bowdoin College,spending time abroad at the University of Cambridge in the UK (where she found the dining hall cuisine rather offensive and repulsive, as opposed to the top-ranked Bowdoin Dining Services). Her palate is ever-evolving but Burgundies are among her current obsessions. Her least favorite wine-related phrase: “I don’t like _.” Lauren also enjoys cooking Italian and French cuisine, and has an unnatural obsession with Gorgonzola and pancetta.
About The Humble Gourmand
The Humble Gourmand is published the first Friday of each month, edited by Alison L. McConnell, a Washington, D.C.-based journalist and writer. It is designed to offer straightforward lessons and advice to aspiring cooks, oenophiles, and all other eaters and drinkers.
The Humble Gourmand encourages users to comment on any and all of its features, but reserves the right to remove any material deemed inappropriate.
escott
August 17 12:26 p.m. 1Lauren, did you see the NY Times article in this sunday's magazine?
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/08/17/magazine/17wine-t.html?ref=magazine
Any thoughts on it? I know it's Bordeaux (not the topic of this post), but still, what do you think about these "classifications" and how they affect the wine market/industry?
Lauren
August 18 10:46 a.m. 2Spot on, Em. I'll respond in a separate post.