Bandol, Domaine de la Laidière, Rosé

Wine: Rosé
Country: France	Region: Bandol (Provence)
Rating: Very good	Price: $18
Recommendation: Strongly recommended

The wine we are sampling this week is a Rosé and again I am bringing you a wine type that I have misunderstood in the past. My misunderstanding was somewhat through ignorance and some part due to sampling inferior brands a long time ago. When I was researching Provence for a previous blog, I became interested in the descriptions of the Rosés produced there, which caused me to seek out this weeks wine. It has been very gratifying expanding my horizons by doing this blog and hope in some way you do the same. The food is pork loin wrapped in banana leaf, something I have done several times in the past and is something I just make up myself each time I do it, which is great fun.

The wine comes from the Bandol region, which is a very small seaside region in Provence, tucked between Marseille and Toulon. The Bandol area produces strong earthy reds but also produces some excellent Rosés, I have read some reports claiming they are amongst the best in the world. Bandol produces only about 60,000 cases of wine per year compared to 60 million cases produced by the more famous Bordeaux region. To some extent, the Bandol region could be described as a well kept secret and based on this wine, it would be well worth further exploration. The Bandol region is typified by silicon & limestone soils and enjoys a warm, coastal climate. The grapes are grown on hillside terraces called “restanqes” with stone walls built piece by piece by the farmers.  The region is said to contain breathtaking mountain views and rolling terraced vineyards. 

The wine has a nice earthy bouquet, slightly sweet yet dry aftertaste. Definitely a summer wine it would be great for a lazy summer afternoon with a nice salad. It has hints of fruit, possibly apple although it was difficult to identify anything explicit. It was very enjoyable and I would describe the flavor somewhere between a Riesling and a Sauvignon Blanc. Based on this sampling, I will definitely be exploring Rosés more in the future.

In this case, due to the small volumes of wine produced in the region there is no single winery to highlight. It seems that a company is importing Bandol area wines into the Houston and Austin markets initially, and starting to slowly expand into the larger USA market. The Bandol Rosés  may be hard to find in many places but I am sure you can have fun searching for them, or for any Provencal Rosés.

  

The food this week is not really a recipe as such but something I have experimented with a few times in the past. The dish is pork loin cooked in banana leaf. One of the reasons I like this meal is that the banana leaf retains the moisture in the meat.

For the pork I like to select natural Pork loin without preservatives, there are several packaged pork loins available locally with lots of preservatives and sodium etc. The pork containing preservatives obviously last longer than the natural one but I prefer the natural ingredients wherever possible. Almost any pork cut could be used for this dish depending on your preference.

Obviously not everyone has access to fresh banana leaves and Aluminum foil can be used as a substitute.

The following are the ingredients I used however, the quantities could be sized according to your needs and the ingredients adjusted to suit your tastes.

One pork loin

Pieces of twine (ensure the string does not contain nylon or substances that will melt)

One large sweet potato

One large potato

One large green Zucchini (courgette)
One large yellow squash

One Shallot

One large red onion

One red pepper (Capsicum)

One yellow delicious apple

Pineapple (if desired)

Lemon & Limes (If desired)

To prepare I do the following. 

Soak the string in water for at least two hours prior to cooking, the longer the better.

Slice the potato, sweet potato, Zucchini, yellow squash and red pepper diagonally into thick pieces. Cut the onion and shallot into halves or quarters. Slice some pineapple into pieces approximately half an inch thick.

Cut the lemon and lime into quarters or eighths.

Select one fresh young whole banana leaf per piece of pork. In my example I cut five pieces of pork, each to be cooked a different way. When selecting the banana leaves, they must be whole, without any tears and as young as possible as they tend to be more flexible when young and will fold better. I had some problems this time as it has been very windy here lately and finding banana leaves that were not shredded was quite a challenge. Luckily we had several new shoots that were slightly protected from the wind. Rinse the banana leaves and allow to dry.

Wrap the pork in a banana leaf and tie with string. Be careful not to cut or tear the leaf as it will cause vapor and juices to escape and the meat will dry out. It is best to wrap and tie fairly loosely, if you try to tie too tightly, it can easily cut into the banana leaf. Sometimes it is best to cut off the stem and several inches of the base of the leaf, the further away from the base, the more flexible the spine of the leaf is.In my example I did the pork five different ways as follows:

- On the grill - no banana leaf

- Natural – pork only, no other ingredients, wrapped in banana leaf.

- Apple – pork surrounded by pieces of apple, wrapped in banana leaf.

- Lemon Lime – pork surrounded by pieces of lemon and lime, wrapped in banana leaf.

- Pineapple – pork surrounded by pineapple, wrapped in banana leaf.

Cook the ingredients on the grill, being careful to allow longer/shorter cooking time per ingredient as necessary.

The pork took about twenty to thirty minutes and will vary depending on the heat of your grill (BBQ) and the size of the pork loin. We had trouble cooking due to the wind; I could not reduce the temperature of the grill low enough without the flames going out resulting in overcooking and some burning.

The results

- On the grill, cooked as it is and no banana leaf wrapping resulted in nice “grilled flavor” but in comparison to the others was quite dry.

 

- Natural, nice flavor and very moist. No discernable “grill flavor”.

- With apple, retained moisture and very subtle apple taste, the apple was a very good match with the pork.

- Lemon lime, stronger taste than the apple, good taste but I preferred the apple, good moisture retention.

- Pineapple, strongest flavor, the pineapple went very well with the pork, very moist and probably my favorite.

Rating: Very good

Available at Specs in Houston

Winery Web Site

http://www.bandolwines.com/Bandol