Drink This Now Lesson Blog Report #2

    For the second Drink This Now lesson, I decided to go with lesson #1.  In this lesson, we were to go buy a type of wine, some hard cheese, and lastly pair this wine with some foods to see how it evolves.  In addition to the pairing with cheese and foods, we were to try the wine upon opening and take notes, and let it sit for two hours and then try again and see how it has changed.  After that is when you try it with the cheese.  I went with parmesan as my hard Italian cheese.  As far as the pairing goes, I paired this wine with grilled chicken covered in cheese, bacon crumbles, and raw onions. 

For the wine:

Cotes du Rhone Apellation d'origine protegee

The cheese:

I went with Kroger brand Parmesan

Dinner:

Step #1: Initial reaction to the wine

    When I opened this wine up and pouring the first glass and took a sniff, I was immediately taken punched with fruity aromas.  I was really preparing for a super fruit-forward wine.  As far as specifics of aromas, I was able to get plum heavy, some blueberry, and a little bit of blackberry but I was not positive on that.  As far as color goes, this wine is a darkish purple color.  No debris or anything in the wine.  Now onto trying the wine, the fruity flavors, again, specifically the plum, were very present, but honestly not as strong as I had imagined they would be based off the smell which kind of surprised me.  I was also surprised about the spice this wine punched, specifically on the aftertaste.  So much so that after my first sip I even coughed.  It seemed to soften up though as I worked through the first glass.  

Step #2: Let the wine open up for a few hours and try again

    After leaving the cork off the wine for a few hours and revisiting, I was able to notice a pretty big difference in both the smell and the taste.  Trying the freshly opened wine, you are punched by the fruity aromas on your first sniff.  This is not really the case after letting the wine sit for a little bit.  It is almost like the wine has mellowed itself out during this timeframe which I really enjoyed.  As far as any other aromas I was able to pick up that were not previously there, I kind of got a little bit of chocolate or vanilla, I'm not really sure how to describe it but it just smelled silky.  Now for the tasting, it was pretty much the exact same as smelling in terms of how much it had mellowed out.  You could definitely still get the plum notes but not as dramatic.  The spice that hit me at the end of first trying it was no longer there, as the wine finished velvety smooth.  I was definitely able to get some vanilla which I thought was weird because that was not listed as a descriptor for either Grenache or Syrah, the two grapes in this wine.  

Step #3:  Try the wine with cheese:

    So, after trying the wine initially, waiting a little bit, and then trying the wine again, we are to try the wine with the hard Italian cheese.  Just as a reminder, I went with parmesan.  I took a bite of the cheese by itself first to try to get a feel for it, and it was definitely very potent by itself.  I took a drink of wine while I was working on the cheese and I could immediately note how much bigger the fruits tasted.  Its like the cheese brought out what I was smelling initially.  Also, the spicy element I was able to taste before was completely gone.  The wine finished extremely smooth, and the fruit was jumping.  I honestly liked this wine so much more with the cheese because it seemed to like disarm it in a way.  As far as how the cheese changed, it definitely softened up a bit too but honestly I could not taste a huge difference, maybe because of how elevated the fruit flavors were in the wine.  

Step #4: Trying the wine with dinner:

    So after I had let the wine sit for several hours and tried it with cheese, next up was trying this wine with dinner.  Like I mentioned earlier, I had grilled chicken covered in cheese, bacon pieces, and fresh onions.  As a side dish I had corn on the cob with butter and Cajun seasoning.  As far as the chicken goes, I felt like the wine got a little bit of a bitter taste to it when I tried it with the cheese bacon and onion, I had a bite without all that stuff and just the grilled chicken and the wine kind of went back to its normal mellowed out form, so not much to tell there.  Other than getting a tad bitter with the cheese, bacon, and onions, there was not really much change going on here.  A little disappointed with the lack of change in this pairing, but it definitely did not ruin the meal or anything.  As far as the corn on the cob goes, also the same.  Could have been the Cajun seasoning but I felt like it just made the wine get more bitter.  I also enjoyed this meal and wine with my parents, so we finished the bottle at dinner.  

    Overall, this lesson was actually really cool.  Being able to see how the wine evolved from something that comes out from the jump and really gets after you to a wine that mellows out and becomes very silky smooth was interesting.