Braised Chicken with a Dual Pairing from Cotes du Rhone with the French Winophiles

Our group is celebrating the Cotes du Rhone region of France this month.  I am amazed at all the different appellations in France.  There are all kinds of regulations on which grapes can be used in which wineries and how the labels will read and which blends can be used.  It makes for interesting reading but really, folks, if you are like me all you really want to know is "is the wine any good?"

That  is why I love this group and that is why you should join us each month.  Christie of Confessions of a Culinary Diva, leads us each month into a new area of France where we try different wines from different wineries and let each other and all of our readers know if the wine was good, if the food we paired it with worked and if we feel it is a good value and would buy/drink it again.  That saves you a lot of legwork.  Thus far we have visited the Loire Valley, Provence, Southwest France and the Languedoc-Roussillon region.

There is an interesting article all about the Cotes du Rhone at WineFolly.com.  When I was at my local grocer I was very surprised and happy to find wines from Rue de Perle that were marked Cotes du Rhone Villages.  According to the article, this would make the wine middle of the scale with Cotes du Rhone  below it and Cotes du Rhone named Villages above it.  I was tickled pink that I found the wine locally and did not have to travel around this month looking for it.

The store had a red blend that is described on the bottle as revealing "aromatic notes of jammy red fruits, juicy plum and provencal herbs" and a bottle of  Chenin Blanc from the Vouvray region described as having "notes of soft fig and crisp pear with hints of ginger and green apple". 

I was making a lovely dinner of Braised Chicken Leg Quarters with Potatoes, Porcini and Cranberries for my Bloggers CLUE Society so I decided to buy both wines, which were very reasonably priced, and see which paired better.  While dinner was in the oven we opened the bottles and sampled them each finding them both smooth and fruity and delicious on their own.  I finished the sample of white and Frank finished the red while we awaited dinner.

While both wines were very good on their own the dish I made was rich and heavy and paired much better with the red wine.  I was glad that I did this tasting because prior to this I would have served white as I was serving chicken without considering the dish as a whole.  In this case the white wine was much too bright and when paired with this dish was too acidic.  I do think the Chenin Blanc would be delicious with a white fish and I am going to keep it in mind for one of these Fish Fridays.

Let's take a look at what the others found from this region

• Anna from Anna Dishes “Brown Butter Red Wine Filet with Mushrooms,Baby Potatoes & Asparagus”
• Camilla from Culinary Adventures with Camilla shares “Souk-Spiced Leg of Lamb with L’O de Joncier”
• Cindy from Grape Experiences shares “Costières de Nîmes – The Rising Star of the Rhone"
• Christy from Confessions of a Culinary Diva “Rhones Gone Crazy”
• David from Cooking Chat “Wine for Rustic Chicken and Sausage Stew”
• Jeff from foodwineclick shares "Roti de Cochon Tout Simplement et Hermitage"
• Martin from Enofylz Wine Blog “A Taste of Gigondas and Vacqueyras”
• Michelle from Rockin Red Blog “Separation of Church & Wine”
• Sarah from Curious Cuisiniere “French Onion Soup and Cotes du Rhone Wine”
• Wendy from A Day in the Life of a Farm “Braised Chicken with a Dual Pairing from Cotes du Rhone”

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