Provencal Stew
&
Beaumes de Venise AOC

Head for the South! Savour the famous Provencal stew with the charm of the Beaumes de Venise AOC. A sunny and fragrant cuisine with a wine that smells like the garrigue.

XAVIER VIGNON SELECTION

PROVENCAL STEW RECIPE

PREPARATION: 30 MINS (THE DAY BEFORE) | COOKING: 6 HRS | SERVES: 6

A bowl of stew full of beef, onions, carrots, herbs and a slice of bread

IngrEdients

Marinade:

1kg braising beef (chuck steak, cheek, shin)
1 onion
4 cloves of garlic
750ml Provence red wine
zest of 1 orange
3 cloves
mixed herbs (thyme, savory, rosemary, bay leaf)

Cooking:

4 sliced carrots
3 minced shallots
1 minced onion
1 slice of diced smoked bacon
80g pitted black olives
80g tomato purée
1 tbsp flour
6 tbsp olive oil
parsley
salt
pepper

PrEparation

Marinade:

The day before, cut the meat into big cubes. Put them in a bowl.
Add the onion, cut into quarters and studded with the cloves, garlic cloves, unpeeled and lightly crushed, and mixed herbs. Season with salt and pepper.
Pour in the red wine and mix well.
Cover with cling film and let rest for at least eight hours in a cool place, stirring every two hours.

Cooking the stew:

The next day, drain the pieces of beef. Keep the marinade.
In a cast iron casserole dish, heat the oil to sweat the onion and shallots.
Add the chopped smoked bacon and brown for three minutes over a medium heat. Sear the meat on each side.
Sprinkle with flour and mix.
Add the tomato purée. Season with salt and pepper and mix again.
Pour the marinade into the pot. Cover and simmer on very low heat for five to seven hours.
Two hours before the end of cooking, add the carrots and black olives.
Keep an eye on the level of gravy which shouldn't be too reduced.
Thin out a few sprigs of flat parsley to garnish the plate.

A vineyard in front of a tree-covered hill

Beaumes de Venise AOC

Discover our selection of wines from the appellation

RED Beaumes De Venise - Xavier Vignon

The word "daube" derives from the Provençal word adobar which means "to arrange". In other words, a technique for improving a tasty dish made from less noble products. The daubière is the traditional clay utensil needed to cook the dish over a wood fire. If you don't have one, you can braise the dish. A cast iron pot will do the trick! As for the choice of wine for the marinade, opt for a red wine from Southern Rhône or a Côteaux d'Aix en Provence.

To enjoy the tasty meat of this long simmered dish, a silky red wine from the South of France is required. Our experts have thought of the red wines from the southern part of the Rhône Valley, the Beaumes de Venise appellation. Powerful, fruity and gourmet wines made from Grenache and Syrah that are ideal for grilled meats and dishes in sauce.

a red grenache plant

Image: red Grenache from the estate

AN ORIGINAL WINE

A master in the art of blending, Xavier Vignon is recognised as one of the experts in the Rhône Valley. Thanks to his privileged position as consultant enologist, this enthusiast has the opportunity to access wines from world-famous estates that are not offered to traditional wine merchants in order to create his own wines by blending the juices from the best parcels. Through the numerous cuvées he creates, for each one, he extracts the quintessence of a terroir under the Châteauneuf-du-Pape, Côtes-du-Rhône, Gigondas, Cairanne, Vacqueyras, Rasteau, Ventoux and Muscat Beaumes de Venise AOCs. And when he blends different vintages or appellations, Xavier produces vins de France with a disconcerting freedom in view of the quality of the vintages. He competes with talent in the precision of the maturation and the sublimation of Grenache, his prefered grape variety. But this time, with this Beaumes de Venise cuvée, Xavier is on his own land and his talent is not limited to that of blending: he claims a certain paternity as a winemaker and evokes it with pride:

a bunch of red Syrah grapes on the vine

Image: Syrah from the estate

❝ Unlike the other wines, this cuvée is a very rich blend of different plots of land, but vinified in one and the same place... In Beaumes de Venise!❞

But in this appellation, there was a little extra, Xavier Vignon tells us:

❝ If it has taken advantage of all the terroirs of the appellation, the wine has particularly benefited from those at altitude, since it has been able to access Syrahs at more than 500 metres perched on the Saint Amant hillside! The cuvée thus combines privileged access to the extreme heights of the appellation with a base from the best terroirs such as the Trias, stony soils and pebble scree. With an atypical final blend of 50% Syrah and 50% Grenache, we end up with a very flowery, very violet, airy Beaumes de Venise.❞

Beautiful black colour with ruby highlights. It delights the nose with notes of ripe black fruit, crushed raspberry and spices (Sichuan pepper), garrigue and light smoky notes. On the palate, the wine reveals a nice structure, supple tannins and a nice balance. We also like the superb floral finish with black fruits and sweet spices.

❝ Remarkable for its purity, concentration and elegance. Given what we are experiencing in terms of global warming, the appellation benefits from this: these heights give it greater day/night temperature differences... These perched terroirs result in wines that are not too concentrated in tannins, which brings a beautiful roundness and seriousness but always in nobility,❞ explains Xavier Vignon.