What's Pressoir Drinking?

November 2, 2020
by Justine Puaud

I recently hosted a small gathering of friends . Everyone brings some of their recent favorite wines, we decide all together on the menu and my husband cooks. We didn’t end up opening anything crazy fancy. The goal was to discover and enjoy delicious food with great wines and good friends.

As the weather is cooling down, we started enjoying a richer cuisine and opened some full bodied red wines.

Paolo Bea “San Valentino” Umbria Rosso 2015
Fantastic winemaker who produces perfect examples of what Sagrantino and Sangiovese are capable of from Umbria, Italy. The San Valentino vineyard hosts 50-year-old vines, planted in soils dominated by clay. The composition is 70% Sangiovese, 15% Sagrantino, and 15% Montepulciano sourced from all his vineyards. It was a rustic and earthy red with a delicious juiciness. “San Valentino” might be the most elegant wine Paolo Bea is making, although it is a bit of stretch to use the term elegant. Let’s rephrase it and say it was the least exuberant wine we had from his range, fairly light without being too polite.

Domaine Léon Barral, Faugères “Jadis” 2015
Didier Barral is a kind of revolutionary winemaker in the Languedoc-Roussillon region. He uses biodynamic practices and has a team of twenty cows, horses, and pigs for farming his vineyards. This is the concept of sustainability at its finest! The ecosystem creates interdependence between the animals and the vineyards.
The vines are in between 30 to 90 years-old, planted on schist soils and are classic Rhône grape varieties. The Jadis is a blend of Carignan, Syrah and Grenache from a single vineyard. This wine was the big surprise of the night because it was just THE perfect pairing with the beef tenderloin and the creamy peppercorn sauce! Even if it is a full-bodied, intense red wine, it was also a really well-balanced, open and complex wine. There was a beautiful nose of black fruits, “herbes de Provence” and spices. On the palate, it was a bit rustic with succulent aromas of cherry and blueberry jam. You can definitely wait another 10 years to open it!

Beef tenderloin with creamy peppercorn sauce

I’m happy to share my husband’s creamy peppercorn sauce recipe which is super easy and made with only 4 ingredients:

• Pan juices from steak

• 1/4 cup Cognac

• 2 cups brown stock or canned beef broth

• 1 tablespoon black peppercorn, coarsely crushed

• 1/3 cup heavy cream

Cook steak to your taste, then remove and rest while you make the sauce in the same pan.

Add some butter and crushed peppercorns. 

Deglaze with some cognac, flamber to collect the cooking juices from the bottom of the pan. Add beef broth or stock, and simmer rapidly until it reduces by half (intensifies the flavor);

Stir through cream and crushed peppercorns. Serve over the steak.