Cheese Pairing/Dinner Pairing

So at first I was going to separate these two events but the problem with a big family and lots of activities the only time we had time to do this together. And by the end of the meal we had mixed all the wines trying different pairings and with an 18th month old niece, we also had to slightly rush. But it was a fun crazy evening with lots of good food and lots a great wine.  Luckily my older sister and her husband (and her gorgeous daughter who did cheerios and a Kale smoothie pairings all night) came over and helped my parents and I taste! I'm so lucky to have a family that is always so excited to help me with my homework.

Good food and good company

First we did cheese and wine pairings for appetizers.

The Parings: 

The wine and cheese pairings 

--Coastline 2011 Monterey, CA Chardonnay with a basic Mild Brie 
--French Domaine de la Presidente Rose Rosa Rosam paired with a Sharp White Cheddar 
--2011 Corvallis Cellars Pino Noir, Oregon, paired with a Medium Gouda

The Coastline Chardonnay was a favorite of my moms, so we have some of it. However the first Coastline we opened was dark colored and disgusting. The second bottle was a little better but overall it seemd extremely oaky. It did slightly enhanced brie and the brie helped a little to decrease the oakey extremity. This pairing could have been better if it had just been a bettery Chardonnay, we're thinking a bad case with this one.

The Rose was the surprise of the evening. My mom likes a basic wine without too many fruity flavors and definitely needs to be dry. So this was a hit and definitely noted as a good light wine for the summer. The Rose and cheddar had a apricot taste but overall not fruity. Kind of earthy it was just light and fresh. It went pretty well with the cheddar since it just blended smoothy. The wine became subtle but a good subtle that brought out the flavor of the cheese. Just overall great experience

The Gouda and the Pinot Noir was the best of the cheese and wine tasting. They balanced each other very nicely. The Pinot took the bitterness out of the Gouda, which is a harsh cheese. It made it almost light and soft. The wine definitely did more for the cheese than the cheese did for the wine. The fruitness of the wine was actually masked by the Gouda. What was interesting for me is that my mom does not really drink red wine at all, however with the cheese she could only see herself drinking the pinot but also she could not drink the pinot without the gouda.

Wine and Cheese sampling 

Our 3 dinner wines for the evening 

Then we moved onto a basic 3 course dinner. 
The Dinner Pairings: 
--2011 Ventana Riesling from Monterey, CA with a Spinch, Pear and Green Been Salad.
--Sausages and Grapes with the 2014 Myanmar Shirax 
--Zucchini Linguine with a 2013 Austrian Gruner Veltliner

Salad with homemade salad dressing

--2011 Ventana Riesling from Monterey, CA with a Spinch, Pear and Green Been Salad. It also had a blue cheese and walnuts which was great. The best part about this salad was the Reisling dressing that the recipe had me make. It had diced pear, Riesling, lemon juice, shallot and Dijon mustard. It was a big hit and overall the salad paired so well with the wine. Not only because there was Reisling in it. My sister actually thought that would hurt it and make it too much Reisling. However it was not overpowering and did not seem as sweet as reslings sometimes can appear. The salad made the wine actually come off as a little heavier than normal, which in this case was great. It makes the wine bold. My family does not drink a lot of Reislings, usually we hate it due to its sometimes sweet and too fruity taste and this actually needs the salad to cut it. 

The Sausage and Grape Dish
My brother in law and my dad ate it all
before I could snap a picture

http://www.epicurious.com/recipes/food/views/spinach-pear-and-green-bean-salad-with-riesling-dressing-15660

--Next we did Sausages and Grapes with the 2014 Myanmar Shirax that I had brought back from Myanmar (and had previously blogged about). First off I did not realize how spicy the sausage I had bought was. So it was very spicy. And this was a recipe I wish I had tried earlier so I would known this and the way to balance it out would be to put more grapes in it.
The wine was the big hit because the wine was great, not becuase it was a good pairing. Basically this was the wine people kept coming back too after the pairings were done.
http://www.foodandwine.com/recipes/sausages-with-grapes

The Zucchini and Linguine

--The final part of our pairings was the Zucchini Linguine with a 2013 Austrian Gruner Veltliner, which I have been really excited to try since we learned about it in class. This wine brought out the herbs in the linguine. The dish was a very herby, lemon zest, light dish. So the wine just was smooth with it. The wine seemed slightly carbonated and fixxer than a pinot grigio. This linguine was great just as a light but filling meal, it would be great in the summer. Especially with this wine pairing, we would talking about how good it would be on our patio in the summer. http://www.foodandwine.com/recipes/zucchini-linguine-with-herbs

My mom enjoying Rose

What was intersting was at the end of the night my dad, being that guy, decided to try some other pairings and the main one he did was the Gouda with the Myanmar wine. He was thinking since the Myanmar wine was close to the Pinot it would be okay, he was very wrong. The Shirax had too much of a bite and it contrasted with the Gouda too much.

According to my family, the dinner pairings went better than the cheese pairings, which I also think becasue the wines that I picked for the dinner were just better wines (outside of the Rose). The chardonney was the biggest disappointment but probably because of a bad case.

This whole experiment proved to not only myself but to my whole family that wine pairings really do change your meal and your wine. We are a family of do you want white or red? My dad drinks all red, all the time and my mom drinks white all the time. That was part of why I picked these choices, I wanted to make my family try new things and go outside their comfort zone. At first they were spectical pink wine but then they learned that real French Roses are actually extremely dry and then none of my family had heard of Gruner Veltiner. So that was fun to try all these new things.

My niece Vivian telling us about her pairings for the evening

We found wines we would have never picked up on our own that just blended so well and was so amazing with the right food. Everyone was blown away not only by the food but the wine and how well they complemented each other.


What I learned: I can in fact plan an entire meal AND cook it. Also pairing wines is not hard, it just takes some basic rules and you can make amazing choices that blow people away.

I promise I was there! (in plaid) I cooked everything!