2018 Foillard [Beaujolais Villages] 12.5%, youthful, almost grapey, purplish color. raspberry/strawberry fruit flavors with some earthiness hiding behind all that. Looking at my prior notes, I think I liked the 2016 better than this, but its still very good. Light bodied, no tannin, and acids are ok for my palate. It does - surprisingly - go well with some fatty roast duck that I had marinated for a couple of days. This Kermit Lynch import has some cloudiness, but I didn’t stand it up prior to opening, nor decant. On my scorecard it sits on the border between a B+ and an A-, but after nursing it over three days, I’d slot it into the B+ zone. I know there is all kinds of praise for the cru bottlings of this producer, but the basic blended stuff is solid too. However, they take a little effort to find, and basically I have to pay for shipping / mail order to get the wines.
I really wanted to somehow make this combo rhyme, and even though Foillard and Mallard might look like they rhyme, they don’t, and I’m not really sure what species this was anyways (other than super greasy!) Thanks to Jeff for suggesting a fix to this master sommelier quandry: CANARD
A couple of days marinating in a Chinese style marinade (orange peels, fish sauce, soy, orange sauce, shao xing cooking wine, etc.) and then an hour at 425F in a ceramic platter. I use ceramic when I have acidic/sweet sauces since it won’t pick up tinny notes, and - in theory - it is slightly easier to clean since those can go into the dishwasher after a couple of days soaking / scrubbing in the sink. Ceramic slows the cooking though.
They had frozen Pekins / Muscovy’s at our market, but also unspecified fresh ducks (that I had to dress myself) so I tried one of those. I mentally told my self it was a Mallard so I could obey wine pairing rule #1 of ‘rhyming’ but I had to really contort how I pronounce Foillard.
We had a visitor last night who is sulfite sensitive (and rarely drinks red wines) but I persuaded them try to a low additive example - the 2019 Foillard [Beaujolais Villages]. The label does disclose that it contains sulfites, but by reputation they have a lighter hand with that. I found this 12.5% abv gamay to be a tighter, less expressive than prior years. 2019 didn’t have the vibrant fruit I was expecting. Synthetic closure, and properly stored, and still good/solid, but not at the ‘wow’ level these have delivered in other years. Some earthiness, foxiness, and cranberries. I’d give it a B on my card.
