Today I was at Alouette Bistro, nestled within Vancouver’s iconic Hotel Le Soleil. Here, for a unique wine dinner hosted by Frédéric Pacaut, the managing director of Delaunay Vins & Domaines. A five course dinner with wine pairing, from the creative minds of Alouette culinary team, lead by Chef Alert Tran.
As the room settled into our seats, we heard from Frédéric. I was lucky enough to be seated beside him. He introduced us to the historic Delaunay winery established in 1893. A family house of five generations, and one of the top 7 French brands in the country. Their legacy is punctuated by the selling of their family winery, only to purchase back in 2017. This act retrieved the family’s name, history, and cellar. A year later in 2018 their new generation of wine was ready for the shelves. The last five years has seen the Delaunay family pouring all their energy and efforts into making and aging wine, then expanding into the international market with it.
They are known for their Burgundy wines, and because of this feel the pressure to uphold these expectations. Their range of grapes come from the dead centre of Burgundy, a thin strip of land that runs North to South.
The first course was Dungeness Crab served like a dip over cracker. Sourdough, avocado, and creme fraiche. The highlight was a gel that topped everything, made from the same wine that was in our glasses for paring with. I would have liked more of it as it brightened the plate, adding a lovely contrasting flavour. Without it the larger cracker felt one toned. It reminded me of a California roll with the crab and avocado combo, but heavier on the avocado and all on a dry base instead of moist rice.
Traditionally for wine pairing you would go from white to red, and within those categories simple to complex. Here the latter was swapped and we started with the Chassagne Montrachet Le Village Blanc 2019, as the more complex of the two whites of the evening. It was slightly aged and golden in colour, a white that the Delaunay family is proud of. It is made with grapes from the golden triangle of burgundy. This is 3 of the most notorious white producing villages, famous for their expensive white wines. Therefore is no surprise that we liked this as much as we did at $124.99 a bottle retail.
It paired well with the creamy and fishy sweetness of the crab. Like the gel, the wine too helped to brighten and add some needed acidity. This was our favourite bottle of the night. It was heavier in body than most whites I have tased. I enjoyed its savoury umami flavour with a whisper of apricot. With this you get fruit and velvety florals, plus a tastiness that you smack your lips on.
For our second course we had scallop, but reimagined. They weee made into udon noodles and served in a tomato consommé with potato and prosciutto. The broth was poured out from a teapot table side. I appreciated the creativity of the dish and the workmanship to achieve such fragile and gentle strands of slurp-able noodles. However, I found that it clashed with the wine. The broth was almost medicinal, reminding me of Chinese herbal soup. It stood on its own and needed no company. A clean and warming broth that was missing something. The prosciutto didn’t help, and seemed out of place with its colder temperature, gummy chew, and highly salty nature.
Instead, i would have liked the scallop left as a whole, to appreciate it natural texture and flavours, and better pair with the Saint Romain Le Village Blanc 2019. With a smaller production of only 1900 bottles for the world, we were honoured to be trying it here today. Hand harvested earlier in the morning to keep the grapes at their fresher. This was the same grape from the same vintage as above, but 10km away, further East, at a higher altitude. This has the wine avoiding frost, with a cooler climate and more acidity and freshness. The result, a white that has a complex blend of minerality and full fruit flavour.
The third course was an open faced stuffed pasta. A fresh sheet of pasta covering rabbit ragout, mushroom, and truffle; like an umbrella, instead of it being stuffed and sealed. I liked the flavours, but could have used more pasta as a base to balance out all the punchy truffle and salty rabbit meat. It was too much without a neutral base. Thankfully our wine pairing came in handy, and it soon became a necessity with each subsequent bite. My guest best stated that the, “Food makes the wine shine brightly”.
Gevrey Chambertin Vieilles Vignes Le Village 2020 is a Pinot Noir from one of the oldest vineyard in Burgundy. It is situated on a slope with deep soil, facing East. This land has three different plots, which they call “climate”. Wherein the soil is shallow with more depth due to erosion. The grapes are allowed a longer maturation period. 40% are given up to three weeks, others are allowed to fully mature. This allows the fruit to come to a whole, with only sugars. They also leave the stems on 40% of the grapes. This is to enrich the style when punching down. It is aged longer in oak and is fermented with natural yeast on the skin of the grape, leaving it as is. The finished product is a wine that varies year to year depending to crop. The wine itself was delicately fruity mingled with almonds notes.
Course number four was Duck Breast with salsify, onions, and duck jus. Due to this being a long table service, it was colder in temperature by the time we got our plates before us The duck had a lovely roast to it and was slightly gamey. The jus was just as meaty, with the onion offering a little freshness.
As for the wine pairing, the Septembre Pinot Noir 2022 was designed to be approachable with its playful and colourful label, and its $31.99 retail price tag. The grapes were originally from Burgundy, but are now sourced from across the region. It had the most structure and backbone from the portfolio presented today. This 100% Pinot Noir goes through a pre-fermentation maceration to keep its grapes cold. This is what gives the wine additional structure, as a simple, crisp, and not intimating bottle. It drank as straightforward as the duck it was presented with.
For dessert it was a Dark Chocolate Fondant cake with cocoa nibbs, creme anglaise, and cherries. This was basically a chocolate lava cake crossed with ganache for a chewy and gooier centre. The stand out was the macerated cherries being infused with same wine we were sipping on as its pairing, much like what they did with the first pairing. So well executed that I wished they continued the trend across all 5 courses.
I appreciated how well balanced the chocolate and sugars were on this plate. Not overwhelming, but tempered so that you could finish the plate with a variety of toppings. A crunchy crumb, milky ice cream, and a fluffy whipped cream.
Its wine pairing was the Nuits Saint George Le Village 2018. The name means “From a unique village”, one with a high altitude, and is slightly larger than the others. Its size resulted in the town splitting the vineyard in half, each with it own geographical lands. At the Northern half it is flat with less erosion and more clay. The roots extract richer nutrients and turn more fruit into grapes. The Southern half has harder soil the likes of marble and limestone, for more minerals. There is no way to decide if the North or the South is better. However, what is clear is the merit of combining the two halves for a stony and irony flavour. This is in part due to its lack of grape maturation, fermentation in natural yeast, 16 months of oak aging, and having everything destemed. There is only about 5,000 bottles of this produced a year, and its exclusivity will set you back $87.99 per bottle, retail.
In closing, this was a great way to discover both the creativity of the Alouette kitchen and the legacy of Delaunay wines.
Alouette Bistro
at Executive Hotel Le Soleil
567 Hornby St, Vancouver, BC V6C 2E8
604-689-8862
alouettevancouver.com
