Une réunion de famille
Empty nesters are what parents become once their children grow up and leave home to carve out a niche for themselves, often on a work assignment in a different city. Being one of the ilk we were delighted when our son joined us at home for a family reunion – une reunion de famille as the French would call it.
Solar Eclipse Day
Today was a partial solar eclipse day and the better part of evening was spent inside where our familial conversation veered around a variety of topics (including a Goa trip in winters), finally settling down for the evening plan for a fine wine and dine at Delhi.
The Qube
The Qube, our choice for the evening, is a dining restaurant at The Leela Palace New Delhi, Having pleasant memories of being there earlier, we homed on it today too. It was full upto capacity by the time we reached and had a lively vibe about it. A glance through the wine list and the food menu indicated that it would be a good culinary experience tonight.
The Wine
After a brief deliberation on the various choices available, we selected the Famille Perrin Cotes Du Rhone Blanc Reserve as our wine for the evening. It comes from the house of Famille Perrin which is a leading wine producer in southern Rhone and a member of the prestigious Primum Familiae Vini – an international association of some of the world’s finest wine producing families.

A blend of four signature southern grape varietals – Grenache Blanc, Marsanne, Rousanne and Viognier, this Blanc reserve ticked all the right boxes to appeal favourably to our tropical palates. Whereas the strong Grenache provided the structural backbone to the wine at same time Viognier brought in the freshness to be complemented perfectly by the floral aromatics of Marsanne and Rousanne.
Buzz On White Wine & Tannins
Tannin in wine adds both bitterness and astringency, as well as complexity. It comes from the skin of the grapes and gives a feel of what our mouth experiences on a sip of black tea without milk. But tannins are most commonly found in red wine (and absent in white wine). However now many winemakers are using partial skin contact to create whites with firmer tannin structures and greater complexity with grapes like Grenache Blanc, Viognier, Roussanne etc. This brings more gravitas to the wine without sacrificing freshness. We distinctly noticed this effect in the reserve Blanc on our table. If true then it also explains how, although being a white wine, it paired somewhat reasonably with the lamb chops too. However this does call for bit of more investigation.

Food Pairing
The staring pairing was to try out the wine with the baked bread starters and soup sticks and it was a fine match.

Next was to pair the wine with cheesy pepperoni pizza, which being the text book pairing with a white wine, came off perfectly.

Life Tastes Better After A Slice Of Cheesecake
Well the above caption by author Jason Shaw truly rang true while rounding off our family wine dinner on a sweet cheesy note with a slice of mango cheese cake.

13.5 % Alcohol Did You Say !!
The realisation dawned a bit late. The wine had a punch. Slight dizziness prompted me to check the alcohol content on the label of the bottle which to my surprise read as 13.5 % – quite high for a white wine, but then Grenache is a strong grape varietal and moreover no one was complaining, rather it helped us come back to the topic from where we started – the Goa trip in winters..maybe some more white wine awaits us on the azure shores of Goan beaches this XMas. Cheers.