jpjgr: I’m wondering about the type of wine to serve with a fricassee of mushrooms, which includes various types of chanterelles, served as a starter dish. Furthermore, when serving red meat with boletus mushrooms, what would you advise for the wine ? 

Olivier_Poussier: With the mushroom starter, go for matches with well-developed wines which perhaps no longer have the freshest mouthfeel, but which do have a tertiary aromatic scale which is more humus and woodsy in the aromas.

Tend toward wines which have fair complexity as they age. For the meat, beef needs fleshy wines with a certain degree of power. The boletus itself is a fairly fat mushroom. There are several choices, however a powerful red wine, with good tannic structure, a Bordeaux or wine from the southwest, such as a Madiran or a Cahors, seem to me to be a good compromise.

man75006: What, according to you, is the best possible association with a risotto with girolle mushrooms ?
Olivier_Poussier: A creamy risotto with girolles ? I prefer to suggest a white that has aged, revealing a slight oxidation combined with aromas of the woods, of steeped herbal tea … I am thinking of a Meursault 76, for example.

WILLIAM: What wine for veal paupiettes ?

Olivier_Poussier: Here, it is also important to know the sauce and what’s accompanying the paupiettes. Veal is a white meat, well enhanced by half-bodied red wines. Many regions make wines that would go well here, but I’d like to give two specific examples: a Santenay premier cru, with a millésime like 2002, and a Rhone valley solution with a nice red Saint-Joseph from 2001.

divin: I have a cellar with several Burgundies grand cru 1998. Do you think these wines have reached maturity, or should they be carafed ?

Olivier_Poussier: With Burgundy wines, what’s important to know is the identity of the winemaker. This region is approached with respect to the winemaker’s ability to transcend his terroir. Unfortunately, even if one has Burgundy wines grand cru, they are not always able to age well. With Burgundies, the winemaker’s signature determines the quality of the vine and the winery, and tells me a bit more about the ageing potential of your 1998 wines. All I can say, not knowing the maker, is that 1998 is a millésime which can be drunk now, and which has a keeping potential of five to six years. 1998 does not have the concentration of 99 nor of 2002. As for carafing this wine, there is no general statement. It all depends on the texture of the wine, the way it opens up from the aromatic and gustative perspectives when you open the bottle. If the wine needs to decant, then it should, and this would be the case for carafing.

Cavassilas: I have a bottle of Clos-des-Papes 90 (Châteauneuf-du-Pape). What would your suggestion be to really enjoy this bottle ?

ier_Poussier: Hunting season is almost upon us, and I could really see a nice little roasted partridge, or simply a wild hare, à la royale, with this Châteauneuf poured into a carafe and served at 16 degrees temperature.

paulolambert: When does one decide to carafe wine or not ?

Olivier_Poussier: Good question ! I think that it’s a question of the time and of the tasting. The real question to ask here is: does this wine have the capacity, through its aromas and taste, to stand up to contact with oxygen ?
You need to know that wine evolves in contact with oxygen and you have to adapt the decantation depending on the wine’s form. You have to judge the matter and the concentration, and the aromatic opening – this is absolutely essential before you decide to carafe. Not all wines, even old wines which have sediment, necessarily have the ability to stand up to a carafe hours ahead of time. So you also have to adapt the idea of carafing with respect to time.