Would You Like some Wine with that Cheese!

Tonight we are going to see how good our pairing skills are with Cheese! A wide variety of cheese with some hardy reds, now that’s not to say whites can’t go with cheese, it’s just that we are playing with wine and cheese to see what reds could go with some of these fabulous sinkers: Acuto Provelone, Taleggio ( my favourite), Piave vecchio, Appenzaller ; good old Swiss.

I believe that we will be trying some Californian and Italian wines with these cheeses. The goal tonight is to get the flavours and complement each element; cheese with wine and wine with cheese. If done right, this should be good. Stay tuned……

Well, the cheese selection was great and the Cabernet we had was much more appealing with the cheeses we had. The Barolo, on the other hand, was a little more unfriendly to the combination. the earthiness and sharpness clashed and didn’t really complement each other. I think that some white wines may have been a better choice with some of those wines , perhaps a Gewurztraminer, Riesling and or Chardonnay would have complimented rather than confronted the taste!

We will try this again, and look for other wines to compliment the flavors of other cheese. To the journey…..

Check your local cheese monger and wine merchant for some of these and have fun pairing them together

Cheers, For now!

Chardonnay , versatile and classy!

Crisp, Clean and a slight oaky taste, malolactic fermentation the way new wines are curbing oak and keeping the edge on flavours the palate loves . Pasta

What about wine buying?

If you are reading this you probably have a passion for wine. Over the next few week we would like to share with you a wine buying strategy that will allow you grow your cellar to have some wine on hand for special occasions and that dinner party you are about to throw.

Remember, wine is personal and your tastes differ from the next person. However, there are some general rules we should all be aware of , THAT is for another conversation much later. For now let’s  focus on wine and associating it with the social aspects that it was designed for; Dinner! Yes , food and wine are ment to go together. One to enhance the food and wine you are consuming, but secondly, to help the dinner entertainment and conversation lively and diverse!

Let’s look at food and wine from a complimentary perspective.

We will get back to this on our next post!

New Year’s Wine and Dine Experience

It’s been awhile, life gets busy and you lose track of your passions, food and wine! Although I have had some good wines over the past year, there seems to have become a real price gap from good wines to GOOOD WINES! Yes, we continue to hunt for the best $20 bottle of wine that we can drink on a regular basis, those unfortunately are few and far between. It seems that 40 is the new 20 and if you keep that in mind and buy a few bottles 6-12 then drinking them throughtout the next 2-4 years makes spending the money up front much more palatable.
So , tonight is a reclaimation of wines cellared and food pairings in mind when they were purchases, a few or more so years ago! Friends are coming over and we will be sharing this event with you and some of the thoughts about the wines, pairings and future suggestions of what you should be looking for when buying wines.
Preparing has been fun, everyone takes on tasks to make the meal a success. Tonight we are having :

Le Regence Oysters

Stuffed Mushroom Guac Poppers

Carpaccio Piemontese

Stufado with Pork Belly

Caramelized Pears with Tiramisu Cream

Along the way there is also a few cheeses that we have become aquainted with and enjoy regularly,they are Taleggio, Appenzeler & Chaumms. The stinker the better, I say!

It begins with

tenderloin

While preparing most of the sauces for the meal, the tasting of flavours like herbs and citrus notes are constant reminders of the wines that would go extremely well with the menu of food this evening.

tomato & Proscutto base

check back in a bit the day is just beginning…

guac poppers

mushroom poppers

The wines paired with this and the next course were a sauvignon blanc from New Zealand and a viognier from California, both with great structure, each different in complexity. However, the acids in both balanced out the flavours in the food.
They were both used with the dish below and wow, were they great with it. Lending to the overall flavour of the seafood and the sauce. We all agreed that the diversity went well with the one dish. Try this yourself some time:

oyster & scallop

Then we moved onto the Carpaccio and what a treat, we tried it with a few different wines of structure and age. The 2002 Darioush Cabernet was big and fruity, and the truffles from the carpaccio was perfect with this. The Spotteswoode (1998) was big and bold still, many French characteristics in the earthy tones , but still much life in the bottle. Once again, the greens and shallots from the dish really added to the character and complexity to the pairing, wonderful together!

Darioush

There was so much food and conversation that we didn`t get to the stufado, we will have it tomorrow. Yummy stew like soup that warms your heart and stomach.

So we ended the night with a pear tiramisu along with a Tawny Muscat from Australia.
They were so good together and put a wonderful cap on a truly gastronomic evening, full of great tastes and flavours.

Poached Pears with tiramisu