Broccoli rabe, bok choy and bargains from the southern Rhône

When I moved to St. Louis from New York City, I quickly discovered that the chain grocery stores did not carry many of the ingredients that I easily found either in Manhattan’s greenmarkets or the numerous compact family-owned foods stores and delis. Broccoli rabe, bok choy and even a full bunch of fresh mint had suddenly gone from being staples to delicacies.

Finally I learned there was one place where I was bound to find all of my old favorites and even some new ones. That store is Global Foods, 421 N. Kirkwood. It is truly the one spot in the St. Louis area frequented by members of all ethnic groups. The store was founded by Suchin Prapaisilp, who moved to St. Louis in 1970 from Thailand. He like many other immigrants could not find the food that they enjoyed back in their homelands.

Today Global Foods has items from just about everywhere. If you go to the website, there’s even a map of the store showing which aisles carry a particular country’s products. And while food is the main attraction, the store also has a small but intriguing wine section with a moderately priced selection. While I admit that I’d be hesitant about buying some of those bottles, there are some pretty nice budget wines to be found.

For example, the store stocks some French wines from France’s southern Rhône valley. While that’s home to the superb and expensive wines that come from the appellations of Châteauneuf-du-Pape and Gigondas, it also produces some affordable, good quality reds that are great for everyday drinking. Some of these French wines at Global are from lesser known areas or labeled as Indication Géographique Protégée (IGP) rather than from a specific appellation. But I figured they would be fine for a casual dinner and they were.

One was the Domaine des Rozets 2010 Grignan-les-Adhemar priced at $9.99. I had never heard of the Grignan-les-Adhemar appellation but I could have sworn I had seen that label before. Turns out that I had. Grignan-les-Adhemar used to be called  Coteaux du Tricastin, an appellation that was created in 1973 at the northern edge of the southern Rhône. In fact, when the cashier rang up my receipt it still identified the wine as Coteaux du Tricastin.

About a year after Coteaux du Tricastin was created, a nuclear plant was built in Tricastin. The existence of the plant along with an accident in 2008 caused wine sales to drop.  Although no contamination was ever proven, the appellation’s image had been tarnished and the name on the label turned consumers away.

So wine growers petitioned for a name change with I.N.A.O., the French agency that oversees the country’s appellation. The I.N.A.O. approved the change in 2010. When authorities changed the name, new rules for improving the wine from the appellation also went into effect. For example the maximum permitted grape yield was lowered and the use of herbicides was restricted.

The Domaine des Rozets is  made from a blend of typical Rhône varieties: 60 percent grenache, 35 percent syrah and 5 percent cinsault. This is an earthy, medium-bodied red that’s quite dry with tangy herbal notes. It would pair well with burgers and charcuterie.

Another southern Rhône wine I found at Global  is the Domaine de Couron 2011 Merlot IGP Ardèche priced at $9.49. Although this medium-bodied merlot comes from an area in the Cotes du Rhône, it cannot carry the official Cotes du Rhône designation because it’s not made from the appellation’s allowed varietals. IGP is the Europe-wide term for vin de pays or “country wine.” This category doesn’t mean that the wine is of lesser quality, but instead focuses on geographical origin rather than style or tradition. It gives winemakers more freedom than having to abide by the rules to obtain an Appellation d'Origine Contrôlée (AOC) designation. In this case, the winemaker created a wine made of 100 percent merlot, rather than from traditional Rhône varieties. The result is a soft, fruity, fresh red that’s very quaffable and would go well with a variety of foods including burgers, chicken and pasta.

The Domaine de Couron and the Domaine des Rozets are featured in my June 25 Wine Finds column in the St. Louis Post-Dispatch.



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