Bouillabaisse and Picpoul

The other day I made a bouillabaisse, the famous seafood stew from Provence. Geez, it's over 100 degrees outside, why would anyone want to write about fish soup right at this moment?! Well, the AC is purring away here in the house and I am trying to tell myself that it's just another nice sunny summer day outside. Plus, Provence is in the South of France, where it's usually rather hot as well, and they still eat their bouillabaisse there, rain or shine.

Well, the real reason is closer to the fact that I have this fabulous recipe for a bouillabaisse from a recent cooking class. I don't want to bore anyone with excruciating details, so e-mail me if you would like the exact recipe. There are many out there on recipe web sites, but let me at least tell you about my main ingredients. For vegetables, I had onions, garlic, leeks, fennel and tomatoes. My seafood was haddock, squid and mussels. The rouille, basically a flavored mayonnaise, was probably my favorite component of the dish, as mine had roasted peppers, sweet and spicy, in it. I put dollops of it right in the soup bowl, and also topped my baguette with it.

I decided to pair this dish with a white wine also from the South of France. It was the 2009 - okay, here we go, it's a mouthful - La Cave "Les Costières de Pomerols" Coteaux du Languedoc Picpoul-de-Pinet. Here's what you need to know: the region is called Languedoc and the grape type is Picpoul, just ignore all the other words...

This is a simple, dry white wine with citrus and green apple flavors. As it is not overly complex or complicated, it did not take away from the bouillabaisse, which had a lot of different flavors going on. It was a very nice complement to the dish. It was also nice to see a dry white wine with good acidity work well with the spicy rouille. Overall, a great combination.