Pierre André Rully Blanc, 2008 (Bourgogne)

I am not a wine connaisseuse - well, I'm far from being a connaisseuse, I know little about wine. But I still have my favorite kind of wine; when it comes to white wine, it's chardonnay. I like its subtle flavor, I like its color, I like its scent. I mostly like chardonnay from Bourgogne (Burgundy, in English), and here I came across my new favorite chardonnay of this year (so far) at a reasonable price.

It's Pierre André Rully blanc!

Some wines from Pierre André are quite pricy for an everyday consumption; however, it seems that Rully blanc doesn't belong to that group (and tastes very good!).

You can see the symbol of Château de Corton André (the roof tiles of the castle) on the label.

vintage 2008 (récolte means 'harvest' in French)

Its color is pale gold.

And it has this great buttery chardonnay flavor.

(yeah, I know it sounds strange, but I find it 'buttery', haha)

Pierre André has a nice homepage as well, if you're interested.

www.pierre-andre.com

Génépi des Pères Chartreux

We love Chartreuse. We cannot imagine the world of digestif without talking about Chartreuse.

Sadly, we finished the last drop of Chartreuse a few days ago, and Nicolas (where we always get our wines and other liquors) is closed during whole August (for summer vacation - yup, this is France, and I love it!!). So, we were panicked for a while, but O thought of a little shop in vieille ville, which sells all kinds of hard-to-get spices, uncommon meat spreads (such as wild boar, stag ... I've never tried them (yet)), exotic tea leaves, dried mushrooms, ingredients for italian cuisine, and many different kinds of wine and liquor. But when we asked for Chartreuse, they didn't have it anymore and the only similar thing they had there was something called Génépi (this one was made by Pères Chartreux, the same manufacturer of Chartreuse) and we decided to give it a try.

They say Génépi is a kind of flower from Alps and the liquor made of this flower is also called Génépi.

Génépi des Pères Chartreux

The box has the same mark as Chartreuse!

I guess this is Génépi flower (am I right?).

Ingredients : alcohol, sugar, water, and vegetable substances.

It looks like they have their own secret recipe for Génépi (like their Chartreuse).

But I could grasp a vague idea of manufacturing process from wikipedia (haha!).

It says "40 brins de génépi plus 40 grammes de sucre dans de l'alcool à 40° pendant 40 jours (which means '40 flowers plus 40g of sugar in the alcohol of 40° for 40 days')."

The bottle is not transparent, and I was very curious of the color of this liquor.

So, I tried it! ;)

The color is much more lighter golden green compared to Chartreuse.

And the taste is...

If you consider Chartreuse 'grassy taste(?) with dense, strong, and heavy sweetness', Génépi tastes like 'flowers with fresh, bright, and joyful sweetness' (well, I tried my best to describe correctly ...).

Moreover, right after you swallow Génépi, there lingers this soft sweet taste in your throat for a few seconds (which I describes as "banana flavor(?)" and O strongly disagreed haha).

Anyway, I like both Génépi and Chartreuse now. :)

The price was almost same as a bottle of Chartreuse.