Today's recommended wine
Chateau St. Jean, 2007 Belle Terre Chardonnay Alexander Valley (Calif.), $25
Chateau St. Jean has produced this wine since 1975 off the vineyard farmed by the Dick family. It's hallmark is the nose: sweet floral and tropical aromas, laced with spicy oak. The wine is barrel-fermented and aged on the lees in French oak, 55 percent new. That means the fruit has to have some substance to stand up to the wood. The wine is a feminine marriage of fruit and oak. There is a river of sweet tropical fruit on the midpalate that finishes with the toast and spice of the oak. It has good balance in terms of fruit, acidity and wood. When you raise the glass to sip, the aromas flood the senses and carry right on through to when you swallow. It calls for rich cream sauces, rich lobster, grilled whitefish, even a thick veal chop that is sauteed, not char-broiled.
