I am attending a French wine themed dinner club this weekend and get to bring the Burgundy. We are also going to be making Coq au Vin which, in theory, should be prepared with the same juice we drink with it. My question to the group is, what are a few benchmark (if there is one at this price point) Burgundies that are both widely available at retail (in the Midwest) and run in the 30-50 price range - and the lower the better given we will be cooking with a bottle or two of it.
None of the participants are experienced with French wines(myself included), mostly familiar with new world wines. We are more interested in what a true Burg drinker would drink versus finding a transitional wine to bridge the old and new world palates if that makes any sense. Understanding this is a very broad category of wine and that we need to settle for young wines, so maybe this is a bit of a unicorn hunting expedition - but figured more than a few on this board would know a good place to start.
I’m not seeing anything that looks like an online inventory.
My guess is that you will be lucky to get anything beyond Louis Latour, Louis Jadot, and maybe somebody like Drouhin.
But who knows.
The one thing I can GUARANTEE you: If you walk in cold, and act like a dolt, then the salesman will NOT guide you to the best wine.
The salesman is TRAINED to steer the dolts towards the wines which are the most difficult to sell.
And if he gets caught steering you towards the good stuff, which has no trouble selling itself, rather than towards the difficult-to-sell inventory, which the owner desperately needs to dump on unsuspecting dolts, then he will be in danger of getting fired.
I know nothing of these stores, but that seems like a poor business model, which assumes every customer is a single-time customer. If you could guide a local to a wine he’ll really like, it seems like you’d build up more repeat business.
More likely, the sales person at these stores really doesn’t know anything more than maybe which wines are more popular with their customers (“Everybody seems to like The Prisoner!”), and you’re on your own figuring out which Burgs they have are worth trying.
Go to Gomer’s in Midtown, on Broadway at 39th. Ask for Berserker Jim Coley. They have the best burgundy selection in town and Jim is a great guy with great, and primarily Francophile, tastes. He won’t steer you wrong. May want to call ahead, he’s there maybe every day but Thursday(?).
If all else fails, the Lukas on 119th carries a Marius Delarche Pernand IRRC that I considered a few times. They also have a lot of stuff that isn’t very exciting. The only place I’d really go for burg in KC is to Jim.
I’m with you. But I still see folks pouring their good drinking wine into braises and stews. A splash is one thing, but I would not waste any large amount of good wine.
If that is Nathan’s attitude, I would hate to be a customer of his. I hope he is not in retail. What a disgusting attitude and totally inconsistent with most stores I have ever visited.
Burgundian dishes with red wine sauce garnished with champignons de paris, lardons and small onions-meurette, coq au vin, bourguignon etc.-are very much local dishes, made and drunk with the most modest wines of the region, hautes-cotes, passetoutgrains, grand ordinaire etc. Historically the grander wines were for selling, not drinking, and these dishes do not go particularly well with grander wines, even at village level., they are simply too robust.
Is this for a particular store that the OP might go to or are you just making generalizations? If it’s the latter, that’s perhaps the dumbest thing I’ve yet to read on WB. I hope you aren’t ITB and working in wine retail.
Appreciate all the input by everyone. Also appreciate the point not to cook with good wine, it certainly is not in my DNA to cook with good wine - just trying to follow the Child’s classic recipe to a “t”. Simply wanting to deliver the best possible representation of an old world classic to some new world palates and maybe have a bit of an epiphany moment myself.
Michael, many thanks for the very helpful steer to Gomer’s Midtown. They are quite a ways from my home, but I always hear it is worth the drive.
Chris, it’s probably worth the drive, as none of the South/Johnson County stores offer a very good selection for burgundy. Gomer’s usually has decent value burgundy as well, so you should be able to find a good value to cook with and a good sampling to drink as well.
Coq au Vin may be been given to us by the inimitable Ms. Child, but at it’s heart, it is a simple peasant dish made with the ingredients from the area around the peasant. There is no “one right way” until you cook it a bunch of times and figure out what you like best about the dish. Do you want more or less smokiness? Do you want a dark thick gravy or more of a stew? Do you want the wine to infuse into the chicken? Do you want the chicken to have a crispier crust or softer? Mushrooms – pro or con?
I make a pretty kickass coq au vin. I think it’s the best I’ve ever eaten (including in France) and I’ve never touched a pearl onion in my entire cooking life.
And don’t get me started on the $120 “cassoulet kit”
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