How sweet white wine Château d’Arche 2006 pairs with traditional Finnish coffee bun, Runeberg cake or Runeberg’s tarte? And with Finnish and French cheeses?
Château d’Arche is located on the heights of the village of Sauternes in Southern Gironde. This 40 hectare vineyard stretches across the prestigious Sauternes appellation. Wineyard produces only few wines with focus on sweet ones.
The grapes of the wine are Semillon and Sauvignon making the wine easy to enjoy. Wine could be stored even for 20 years if you have enough patience.
THE LOOK
Golden yellow, close to resin.
THE NOSE
Interesting observation or THE NOSE lied again. Found bitter almond, which was odd as it should not be there. Maybe piece of Runeberg cake on the small plate already mislead sense of smell. Anyway, honey and noble rot was there as they should be.
THE TASTE
As you can notice from the chart below wine is not so sweet as many of its cousins. But again taste of noble rot and apricot were obvious.
Facts and figures:
| Alcohol: | 14,00 % |
| Extract : | 160 g/l |
| Acidity: | 5,6 g/l |
| Sugar: | 120 g/l |
| Energy : | 140 kcal / 100 ml (590 kJ / 100 ml) |
| Closure: | natural cork |
First tasted wine with cheeses: Finnish blue cheese Peltola Blue and French ones; white cheese Levasseur Grand Livarot from Normandy and 16 months ripened organic Gryerere, Comte, from Jura mountains (on the left). Port wine is maybe the most common wine for cheeses but would say that Château d’Arche 2006 paired quite nicely. If you would have had more sweet white wine it would have destroyed the taste of cheeses. Of course port or red wines are more safe choises but can recommend this one for salty cheeses.
Then tasted wine with Runeberg cake. Cake is available only from mid January to 5th February, when the birthday of our national poet and writer J.L.Runeberg is celebrated. As cake includes punch as humectant, it really is challenging dessert for wines.
Result: Runeberg cake requires more sweet wine like Tokaji or Eiswein which have around 200g/l sugar. Also as cake has some strong ingredients it requires stronger wine to accompany.
With or without wine, it is always pleasure to enjoy the Runeberg cake or two!
And when it comes to cheeses, would say it was unbeatable threesome. Livarot being maybe the best white cheese in the world.
REVIEW: OVERALL GRADE 4/5 – BANG FOR THE BUCK ++ / +++
Reijosfood 
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