Scallops and Rully Les Saint Jacques

M

Michel Abood

Michel Abood
OK, so it's a cheap tongue-in-cheek play on words. Tonight, being in FL and right by the ocean, I picked up some fantastic-looking (and eventually tasting) scallops. I also happened upon a bottle of 2004 de Villaine Rully Les Saint Jacques. Apparently de Villaine flooded FL with his wines recently, and I have had the good fortune to find them all. Anyway, all you French-speakers are nodding, all you others are asking yourselves WTF is he talking about. Well, scallops in French is "Saint Jacques", so I had scallops with a wine named after scallops. Sadly, that's about as clever as I get, folks. Shows over.

So, on to the wine. On the nose, beautiful notes of ripe scallops (do those exist? Would I want to taste or smell them if they did? Whatever, it smelled like that), with lemon zest and some red apples and a light herbal note. The palate was lean but well-rounded, with sparkling acidity (it felt like little stars going off in my mouth, really neat and definitely interesting). Very Chablis-like, but at the same time not. Cool.
Cheers!
 
Michel,
The 'flood' only extended to Wine Warehouse - I don't see them anywhere else - not even B-21.
And since you're on a roll, I do hope you picked up more than one of the 2005 Les Clous (blanc) from this producer. I served it to a bunch of chardonnay lovers and had to put up with swooning and such.
Best, Jim
 
Michel,
I find little oak in the Les Clous, although it is not without some. But I am the ultimate oak-o-phobe and I bought a case of the 2005 Les Clous as soon as I could after tasting it with dinner. And every time I have served it I have found so much to love about it and nothing off-putting at all. It is so damn suave.
The 2004 may be different but if you get the chance, the 2005 Clous is one to try.
Best, Jim
 
Jim, not surprisingly I am running low on whites, so I might have to pop down to Wine Warehouse this weekend and restock. Life's tough... ;->
 
Michel, Jim &/or other Floridians, do the WW locations stay pretty consistent in their offerings from store to store, or do they let each store manager/buyer pick from what the local distributors wave in front of their nose? I have visited the store in Atlantic Beach, and there's another in St. Augustine, both of which being close to where I could soon be living in Ponte Vedra Beach. Thanks.

Kriss
 
Kriss,
The ownership structure at WW is simply that Tom Dorn is a partner in all of them and the on-site proprietor is also a partner. The on-site guy obligates himself to buy a certain percentage of wine from Dorn and the rest as he sees fit.
That's a damn good deal because Dorn is sharp and buys in palates, not cases. Thus, the product comes in at less than wholesale and the different stores run on a tight margin. The consumer wins by virture of the best retail prices around on the Dorn stuff and by virtue of minimal overhead on the stuff that comes through local distributors.
I find the different stores relatively consistent but not identical.
And all without peer in pricing.
Best, Jim
 
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