House Wine

I always strive to find the best wine at the lowest price to use and serve as our house wine at the chateau.  Our current favorite is a pinot noir from California, the first ever served regularly at the chateau as a “house wine’ from outside of France. 

Chime is a winery that creates single appellation expressions of Pinot Noir and Chardonnay. All of the wines were skillfully grown, vinified, aged, and bottled to bring out the most of these appellations. These wines from Chime engage our senses with nuances and complexities.  The Chardonnay is not our favorite and is oaky, typically Californian, and less balanced when compared to the French styles of Chardonnay.  But the Chime Pinot Noir (Sonoma County from the Willamette Valley, not the Anderson Valley variety) is the California State Fair Wine Competition 2011 winner and one of our all time favorites for a house red, at an affordable price ($11 as of 2024).

The Chime Sonoma Pinot Noir shows a dense bright purple color as well as a nose packed with cherry kirsch, white pepper spice, fresh tilled earth, and subtle vanilla wood aromas. The mouth feel is plump and loaded with savory fruit;  finishing with an expansive luscious mouth feel. *91 Points –  Editor’s Choice* – 2009 Vintage – Wine Enthusiast July 2011.

Keep in mind that during Roman times, wine was not for taste but for the alcohol killed bacteria and provided extra calories.  Nowadays it is purely a luxury accompaniment to food.  People in France drink more wine than anywhere else and they’re notably healthier than Americans – a phenomenon that has been called the French paradox.  

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Châteauneuf-du-Pape is a French wine, an Appellation d’origine contrôlée (AOC) located around the village of Châteauneuf-du-Pape in the Rhône wine region in southeastern France.  Anything from this appellation is excellent but as of 2024 will cost you the better part of $100. It is one of the most renowned appellations of the southern part in the Rhône Valley, and its vineyards are located around Châteauneuf-du-Pape and in neighboring villages, Bédarrides, Courthézon and Sorgues, between Avignon and Orange. They cover slightly more than 3,200 hectares or 7,900 acres (32 km2) and produce over 110,000 hectolitres of wine a year, more wine made in this one area of the southern Rhône than in all of the northern Rhône.