Wine and Dinner Blog #1

     For the wine-dinner pairing, several other students and I got together and all contributed to the meal, with three total wines, and three courses of food.  We did this dinner on Valentine's Day, as we figured none of us had big plans that day anyway, so we might as well drink some wine and eat some good food.

    Getting into some specifics of the meal, we started off appetizers with a spread of crackers, for the main course we had rigatoni noodles with a vodka sauce, both ingredients bought from Kroger, then lastly for dessert we had a homemade Valentine's Day cake.

    For the wines, we had Freixenet Prosecco to pair with the crackers to kick things off, we had Ghost Hull Cabernet Sauvignon to pair with the pasta, and then we had Dreaming Tree Pinot Noir to pair with the dessert cake.   

#1: Freixenet Prosecco paired with Crackers

I was actually very surprised by this pairing.  The Prosecco alone was very light and refreshing by itself, but once I ate a cracker and took a drink of the wine with it, it really opened up a new realm to the wine.  It was like the sweet and salty balance was in perfect harmony throughout the entire appetizer.  I thought the wine by itself was very fruity right off the bat, but once it was paired with the saltiness of a cracker it seemed to enhance the fruit characteristics of the prosecco.  

    I did not feel like the crackers helped bring anything out of the wine that was before hidden, but more so enhanced what the wine was already bringing to the table.  As far as specific tastes, from the wine, I was able to pick up apples off the jump, almost like a sparkling, alcoholic, apple juice.  I was very delighted with this pairing overall and it was a great way to start off the meal.  

Specifics of the wine:

Price:  $17

Variety:  Glera 

Region:  Veneto, Italy

Specifics of the Crackers:

Fig and Olive Crisps crackers

#2: Ghost Hull Cabernet Sauvignon paired Rigatoni with Vodka Sauce

    Starting off with the wine by itself, this was really the first tannic wine I have learned to enjoy.  At first, I was able to pick up hints of blackberry, which was nice to know I was in the right spot after reading more about the wine.  As for the finish, the wine left a bitter-ish tannin feeling.

    After trying the wine by itself, I went in for the for the food right after.  Honestly, I feel like the wine was better by itself.  Once I ate some of the Pasta it seemed like the bitterness and bite of the vodka sauce actually took away some of the fruitier flavors in the wine and exacerbated the bitter finish to the wine.  The pasta by itself was phenomenal and it had a little bit of kick to it.  Some of the flavors I got predominantly off the pasta alone was parmesan and some crushed red pepper.  Overall, this was definitely my least favorite pairing of the night, but that could have just been my palate.

Specifics of the wine:

Price:  $43

Variety:  Cabernet Franc, Sauvignon Blanc

Region:  San Lucas Vineyard, California

Specifics of the pasta:

Kroger for the pasta, and Classico Vodka sauce for the sauce. 

#3: Dreaming Tree Pinot Noir paired with homemade Cake

    Starting with the wine by itself, I thought it came out fruity right off the bat with hints of what I picked up to be very cherry-ish.  As for the finish of the wine, I thought it was a very smooth, non-bitter finish.  I also picked up a little bit of spice with this wine, as a few times it caught me just weird enough to get me to cough.  I thought it was strange noting that I sensed some spice until I read a description of the wine, and one of the key descriptors mentioned was spice.

    But as good as the wine was by itself, I felt like cake took it to a new level.  I felt as though the wine got more of a vanilla flavor to it than it did before the cake.  The cool thing too was that none of the fruity elements or the way the wine finished was affected by the cake, it only really added the vanilla taste.  The vanilla flavors of the cake paired really well this wine, but I was skeptical going in.    

Specifics of the wine:

Price:  $14

Variety:  Pinot Noir

Region:  California

Specifics of the cake:

Homemade