Lacheteau Vouvray 2008: A Cheap & Delightful Food Wine

These are tough economic times and although I'd love to drink a $25 bottle every night, I'm just a normal person, so I've been looking for some well priced deals that I can write about. Many have failed of late, but the Lacheteau Vouvray from Trader Joe's is a very pretty white wine and one that is great with food.

As background, Vouvray is a region in the Loire Valley of France that makes some tasty whites from the Chenin Blanc grape (in France they usually name the wine by the region it's from, not by the grape it's made of). Chenin Blanc is super-high in acid and can be made in a bunch of different styles from sparkling to dry to very sweet. I personally love sparkling Chenin -- if you haven't tried it, seek out a Cremant de la Loire that's dry and see how awesome it is!
(Map Credit: Paul Marcus Wines)

Although a really dry Chenin is fabulous, it's also expensive. Most of the cheaper ones have a touch of sweetness, which is ok because it makes them solid food wines. They can pair with spicy, grilled, fried, or creamy foods and they usually do their job of enhancing the food's flavor very well. I personally don't like to have them as sippers -- for me they tend to be too sweet and, truth be told, they have a funk to them that is like a wet bathing suit. That quality is SO noticeable to me when I sip it that I get a little skeeved out. That said, I continue to buy Vouvray because it's a delicious wine and like all French wines, it's meant to be enjoyed with food, so that's when I have it.

So now that we've dorked out on Vouvray, here's the DL on Lacheteau:

The Wine: Lacheteau Vouvray
Where It's From: Vouvray in the Loire Valley, France
The Grape: Chenin Blanc
Vintage: 2008
Price: $7.49

Color: The wine smiles up at you from the glass with a very bright, transparent, pale straw color. This one was lighter than other Vouvrays I've had, which was a good sign to me because usually lighter colors indicate more acid and less sugar -- the style of Vouvray that I prefer!

Smell: Although the wet bathing suit smell was there, it was integrated with a creamy lemon, orange sherbet aroma so I got over it quickly. The green tea and ginger scents were really nice and made me want to dig into this and see if it delivered on the soft, spicy nose.

Taste: The taste was lightly sweet with green apple and ripe apricot. My grandma used to feed us these little fruit jelly candies that looked like citrus slices and had sugar on them. I was reminded of those. The texture was great -- it was round because of the sugar but there was good acid so the wine had a nice balance. Although slightly bitter at the finish, the sugar did a good job of covering that and it ended on a good note. When MC Ice and I tasted the wine with a piece of buttered bread before dinner, the wine took on a creamy, 1/2 and 1/2 quality that was awesome. It had low alcohol, so we sipped it easily with our light pasta in olive oil and it was a great complement!

Drink or Down the Sink?: Drink. Although we're moving into cooler weather, if you need a wine with a Caesar salad, a white pizza, or a creamy pasta (or toast, for that matter), this is a great pairing. I probably wouldn't sip it without food, but that's not what it's for anyway!