Tasting - Barefoot California Shiraz

Name: Barefoot Shiraz
Variety: Shiraz
Region: California
Country: USA
Year: none listed on bottle
Price: $6

Winery Review: Barefoot Shiraz has deep breaths of lavender cut in front of dark berry and mocha flavors. A vanilla finish makes sure that it really is love at first sip.

My Review: On the nose, this wine is extremely floral and when swirling lots of lavender comes through. In my opinion this wine smelled better than it tasted, lots of blackberry came through on the palate but unfortunately a lot of black pepper did as well. I felt the spice over powered the floral fruits and threw off the balance. I drank this alone without food.

Tasting - MAN Family Wines 2013 Chardonnay

Name: MAN Family Wines 2013 Chardonnay
Variety: Chardonnay
Region: Coastal Region
Country: South Africa
Year: 2013
Price: $8

Winery Review: This elegant Chardonnay has a delicate balance of fruit flavours and a light touch of oak. Golden straw in appearance, the wine has pleasing orange blossom and butterscotch aromas. On the palate the wine has fruity citrus, lime, pineapple and white peach/nectarine flavours with a hint of vanilla spice. Will pair nicely with textured and creamy dishes, such as creamy risottos, quiches, chicken a la king, and grilled fish dishes.

My Review: I have once again reaffirmed that I am not a fan of chardonnay. Any enjoyment that I got out of this probably came from the fact that I ate fish while trying this, which turned out to be a recommended pairing. There was a definite touch of oak that could be found on the nose. Upon tasting this wine I got a sort of tropical island "vibe" from the fruits and spices that came through on the palate.

Tasting - Borsao 2013 Rose

Name: Borsao 2013 Rose
Variety: Garnache Rose
Region: Borja
Country: Spain
Year: 2013
Price: $10

Winery Review: Pale orange. Strawberry and redcurrant on the nose, with hints of rhubarb and fresh flowers adding complexity. Light-bodied and dry, offering brisk, refreshingly bitter red berry and orange pith flavors. Finishes clean and dry, with good cut and a repeating redcurrant note."

My Review: I believe this may be my first ever Rose and I was pleasantly surprised by it.  While it is much less sweet than the wines I typically choose it reminded me of a zinfandel from an old wine cheese pairing. This wine had some of the deeper and more earthy flavors that I tend to be turned off by in the red wines but it also had a decent amount of summer fruits on the palate. I drank this alone without food.

Tasting - Steeple Jack 2013 Shiraz

Name: Steeple Jack 2013 Shiraz
Variety: Shiraz
Region: Southern
Country: Australia
Year: 2013
Price: $8

Winery Review: In true Steeple Jack tradition, this shiraz is full of character.  Blackberries, stewed fruits, hints of mocha and lifted vanilla on the nose, a full soft fruit driven palate followed by a touch of spice and white pepper with a lingering smooth finish.

My Review: I wanted to try a shiraz as it has been a variety I have tasted very few times. I was able to appreciate the blackberries flavors of this wine however the darker fruits mixed with a bit of coffee and spices made it less enjoyable. The aftertastes of pepper were very present with this wine. I drank this alone, without food.

Tasting - Cowtipper White Wine

Name: Cowtipper White Wine
Variety: Le Crescent
Region: Cambridge, VT
Country: USA
Year: 2014
Price: $17

Winery Review: As the humor in its name suggests, Cowtipper has a light and refreshing personality with a pleasant finish.  Crafted from Le Crescent grapes and fermented only in stainless steel, this white table wine is fruity and semi-dry like a Riesling. It is a delightful summer wine, and makes a fantastic Sangria! Cowtipper’s hints of apricot and pear go deliciously with chicken and seafood, grilled tuna being a favorite

My Review: This wine is dry and somewhat sweet, I am glad I had waited to this point in my tasting journey because I would not have enjoyed it in past weeks. On the nose there are clear notes of pear which come through on the taste as well as apricot. I was feeling sentimental and paired this light/crisp wine with some Cabot cheese that went together quite nicely.

Wine Dinner 2nd Edition: Using Your Parents for Food

This past weekend my Dad came to town, which means I got to eat real food!! It took a little convincing, but once I told him alcohol was involved he submitted. For once, I will have a wine pairing that didn't come from the depths of my fridge.  For this delicious wine dinner we took a trip to Olive Garden in Christiansburg. The wines we sampled were a 2013 Cavit Pino Grigio, Primo Amore Moscato and Horse Heaven Hill Merlot. The dishes we paired with were a fried shrimp appetizer with lemon butter glaze, lemon spice grilled chicken with seasonal vegetables and gigantic pork rigatoni.

It was a miracle we got a picture before this was devoured. I don't think Dad was ready for the picture.

To briefly describe the wines, the moscato was so freaking good! It is the best moscato I have had thus far, it was very well balanced with heavy apple notes. The pinot grigio was nicely crisp and  tasted very much like a dryer version of the moscato. The merlot was quite frankly, awful. It was extremeley bitter and tannic, I struggled to even take a sip after smelling the nose of this wine.

   

For some reason they trusted us with the bottles.

Now let's pair some wines!! The first dish to be paired was the shrimp appetizer. I paired this first with the moscato which worked well with the citrus of the lemon glaze. However, the sweetness of the wine was clearly made for a dessert. The pinot grigio was next, the lemon from the dish paired will with the dry citrus of the wine and I felt was the best pairing of the night. Lastly was the merlot which easily overpowered the delicacy of the lemon shrimp. The dark fruit made the breading of shrimp more prominent but overall overdid the dish.

Lemon Glazed Shrimp

The second dish was the Serrano Lemon Chicken and I have to say I overdid it with the lemon juice on this one which made the dish less appetizing. The moscato once again worked nicely with the with citrus notes but the apple flavors of the wine became more prominent. The apple flavors were a nice reprieve from the inundation of lemon in the sauce and brought out the syrup qualities of the sauce. The second wine paired was the pinot grigio which once again performed well. The dryness of the wine brought out some of the spices rubbed on the chicken itself that were overpowered by lemon when tried without the wine. Lastly was the merlot which did better with the chicken dish than the shrimp but was clearly meant for a red meat dish. The tannic bitter taste of the merlot masked some of the lemon of the dish but it all came together to make the wine seem even more acidic and unbalanced. Overall I still feel it did not pair well.

Serrano Chicken 

The final dish to be paired was the baked pork rigatoni. Upon tasting this dish I managed to burn most of my mouth and nearly choke a huge string of molten cheese which definitely affected my ability to taste at all. As usual the first wine was the moscato which for me did not mesh well with the dish. The classic italian spices of the dish were much more savory than the wine and caused it to taste even more sickly sweet than it actually is. The next wine was the pinot, which unfortunately fell flat. The flavors of the wine were covered by the flavors of the sauce in the dish. The final wine to be paired was the merlot, which paired best with this dish.  Even though I did not even enjoy this wine in the slightest, the wine had the strength of flavor to not be masked by the dish. The tannic taste of the wine was mellowed out well by the saucy cheesiness of the dish that made the wine more enjoyable.

Gigantic Pork Rigatoni

 The best part of this tasting for me was the fact that I genuinely enjoyed a wine that wasn't a moscato. My favorite wine of the night however remains the moscato even though it did not really pair well with any of the dishes. I think in the next wine pairing there will be more research involved. I feel that all of the pairings thus fair have been relatively random so there hasn't been any common trends in pairing. I know that all meals have a recommended wine to pair with and would love to see how these recommended wines affect the flavors of the dish and bring out the full rang of flavors.

Wine Dinner: Leftovers Edition

After completing the worlds's cheapest wine and cheese pairing I figured, why stop there?! I present to you the wine and food pairing using the leftovers from my fridge! After sorting through a mountain of tupperware I came up with three foods, all having very distinct and different taste profiles. For a protein sources there are cheesy eggs scrambled to perfection, accompanied by garlic sauteed zucchini and summer squash as well as some sweet afghan rice. If you've never had this type of rice it is full of strong fall spices such as cinnamon and nutmeg.

Gourmet leftovers

For the wines, we tasted a Bay Bridge Vineyards White Zinfandel and Moscato as well as an Andre Moscato "Champagne" all ringing up around the $6 range.

I started the parings with the Bay Bridge Moscato. This wine worked really well with the sweet rice, the fruity apple sweetness of the Moscato and the spices of the rice combined to give you the sense you were eating an apple pie in meal form. For the eggs, it felt odd to be drinking wine and eating eggs at the same time but the acidity of the wine brought out the sharp flavors of the cheese in the eggs. The last pairing of this wine with the vegetable didn't seem natural for me. The heavy garlic of the vegetables called for a wine that was a little less sweet than a Moscato, it did seem to bring out the sweetness even more.

The second wine I tasted was the Bay Bridge White Zinfandel. Quite surprisingly I enjoyed this wine both with and without food and felt it was the most adept at pairing with these three foods. With the rice, the dryness of the wine teamed up with the spices to make this wine almost taste more like a cider. When I moved on to the eggs, the wine seemed to have more of an effect on the egg flavors that the other way around. The eggs transformed into something more substantial with a savory taste. The zucchini was also elevated by the Zinfandel, I felt it did better with the vegetables than the Moscato because of the dry edge that worked with the garlic.

Our meal is prepped and ready for the first pairings

 I saved the Andre Moscato for last because I knew I would finish the bottle once I took a sip. This wine didn't really lend itself to pairing with the meal at all. It has a stand alone sweet flavor with excessive carbonation made for a celebratory toast more than a dinner. The sweet rice worked decently well with the wine, similarly to the last Moscato. However, the summer fruits of the wine didn't blend as well with the fall spices of the rice. Upon trying the eggs I realized how big of a role mouth-feel played with this wine. The bubbles with both the eggs and vegetables was off-putting. The sickly sweetness didn't meld with the salty garlic flavors and didn't have enough balance to bridge the gap.

If there is one thing I have learned from this experience, it is that scrambled eggs have no place in a wine food pairing. Next time I try this sort of pairing I think I will bite the bullet and actually spend more than $6 on it so that I can pair wines with foods they may have a better chance of working with. I was pleasantly surprised to see how the dry or more savory flavors came out of wines that I thought were simply sweet when paired with different dishes.