Food and wine pairing at Chateau Feely, Saussignac

Considering wine with the goddess – possibly Demeter?

Haut Garrigue merlot: Bergerac AOC
From an earlier incarnation of the winery, this wine has a slight brown to the colour from the age. I didn’t really know too much about this before Caro explained it, but have since found this excellent colour chart, which I am quite tempted to buy the poster of because it’s rather cool… Anyway, the merlot is earthy, truffly and savoury on the nose, but still hints at something slightly sweet and even autumnal – we likened it to the forest floor. The flavour is smooth, light with a touch of fennel-like vegetal flavours, maybe even liquorice. There is a light tannin hit and as you would imagine the predominate fruit flavours are soft black fruits. This is also good with cheese, from the tangy goat’s cheese to a more full and creamy camembert.

 I have to admit that my notes were terrible and for some reason I didn’t properly note down the names or years of the wines. But the final hefty red was also amazing – a punchy smell, that was oaky and every so slightly acetony. It was full of body in the mouth, evoking barrel, cocoa and big, savoury tannins.

Fabulous, local food

We also tasted the dessert wine, by which point I decided I had more than enough to write about. And I was right. After the initial tasting and discussion, while we enjoyed a glass of the rose and browsed through the Feely’s excellent wine library, Caro prepared lunch for us and gave us the opportunity to taste all the wines again with the foods – testing the matches she had suggested, seeing what suited our palette and seeing if there were any combinations we thought were good that she had not suggested. It was a fascinating experience, but if I wrote in depth about it, we would be here forever. There were endless good and bad combinations – some things we got right on, some flavour profiles just didn’t match at all, but once one person had said ‘don’t have the smoked duck with that wine!’ then the other just had to try it, just to see. 

It is always fascinating to see what combines well, and how different foods change the character of the wine you are drinking. It’s well worth trying it out for yourself, especially with the expert guidance of someone like Caro Feely. I think it is completely possible that with the right food you would end up loving a wine that you would never drink on its own. 

The final wine, the dessert wine, was in many ways a real revelation for us, as I have never really dared to pair a very sweet wine with blue cheese before, yet it was absolutely excellent and took it really well. Then the dark chocolate gave a while different experience. Amusingly, since we got home, I saw a random old documentary of Heston Blumenthal where he made a dessert with blue cheese melted in to dark chocolate which was served with a sweet wine, so there must be something in it! After that we were treated to a homemade passionfruit sorbet and creme brulee ice cream which were completely to die for. I was totally blown away by the food and the sensory experience. And a little bit tiddly by that point as well.

Once we had finished, Caro took us down to another winery, Chauteau Jaubertie, where we took some more tastings and continued our discussions about flavours, textures and aromas. I had definitely got bored of writing notes by this point and just let myself enjoy the experience, sorry about that. But even wine bloggers have to let themselves go and just live in the moment sometimes, y’know?

So many, many thanks to Terroir Feely. I cannot recommend their wines, their tours and their food and wine pairing lunch enough. It is a truly awesome experience to meet somebody so knowledgeable and so passionate and you cannot help to be infected by that enthusiasm yourself. One of those days that makes you fall in love with wine all over again.