That's a Mouthful!

The name, I mean.  Tonight we are enjoying Domaine La Florane A Fleur de Pampre Visan 2007.  Most of those words make some sense to me (I did take high school French, after all), but one's a mystery: pampre.

Pam´pre

n.

1.

(Sculp.) An ornament, composed of vine leaves and bunches of grapes, used for decorating spiral columns.

Webster's Revised Unabridged Dictionary, published 1913 by C. & G. Merriam Co.

There's your word of the day!

It's entirely a mistake that we have this wine, actually, and a delightful mistake it was.  We had ordered this wine through a wine shop:

http://www.domainelaflorane.com/domfloraneen.html (80% grenache, 20% syrah)

but when it arrived, it was actually a sibling from the same winery, http://www.domainelaflorane.com/afpen.html (90% grenache, 10% syrah)

The nose is remarkable, and a bit unlike a typical grenache.  I am getting cherry, dust, earth, and a hint of saddle leather.  It's slightly less interesting on the palette. Lightly acidic, fruity, a little smokiness from the syrah, some mineral.  We paired it with a spinach and portabello pizza and it was perfect.  One of those unusually good pairings where a "pretty good" wine became "excellent" when matched with the food.  It was as though the wine actually expanded when matched with the mushrooms and cheese.

I do think this is a "drink now" selection.  A pity, since I have several more bottles.  I think I know what I'll be bringing to your house if you invite me to a dinner party in the next few months.