Wine and Cheese Blog - 4/15

 

My mom was up again for the 3.2 for 32 remembrance walk... and what better way to finish our walk than with some wine and cheese? As always, it was my mom and I enjoying these pairings. We also added some bread/crackers to help add more sustenance. 

Our wines were: Dear Mom-Oregon Rose, Gemma di Luna-Moscato, and Field & Farm-red blend.

The rose was very dry and minimally sweet, with some raspberry/strawberry notes. The Moscato was very sweet and light with green apple/pear flavors. The red blend was rather dry and slightly sweet, with cherry/raspberry and maybe plum notes. 

 

We took the advice and went to Eats for our cheese. We picked out four kinds of cheese because we couldn't decide on three... 

We picked a Kerrygold Blarney gouda style cheese, a havarti soft cheese, an English white stilton with mango and ginger, and a smoky brie. 

We used small bottles we had left over from our last trip to the Vintage Cellar for the wines. This included a Moscato, rose, and a red blend. 

My personal favorite pairing was the Kerrygold gouda with the red blend. This surprised me because I don't typically go for strong cheese, and I am usually not a huge fan of red wine. The red blend by itself was very dry and heavy in tannins. It was almost bitter to me and didn't taste much like fruit... it had the leather taste I don't like about red wines. Once I took a bite of the cheese, it completely cut the dryness/leather taste. The wine became very sweet and tasted like I was drinking cherry/raspberry juice. The strong taste of the cheese also got lighter with the wine. I thought this was so interesting and ended up eating most of this combination. 

The brie would've been a better pairing without the smoky flavor. I am lactose intolerant, so I was naturally drawn to this one for that reason. I should've just gotten a regular brie. But, I experienced how the light creaminess paired with the bubbly wines. From my research before, pairing soft cheeses with champagne/brut wines is recommended. This cheese with both the Moscato and rose brought out the fruity flavors and made the wine taste a bit sweeter, not to the extreme of the red/gouda combo, but slightly. The brie cheese made the Moscato sweeter and more flavorful while the cheese flavor became more muted.

The havarti paired well with the Moscato (this was another internet recommendation). The sourness/tartness of the wine complemented the sourness of the cheese. The cheese made the wine taste sweeter/more complex. Also, the cheese was mild enough to not be overbearing to the sweeter wine. A sharper cheese would not have been pleasant (like the sharp gouda). 

The Stilton cheese was also an interesting pairing because it was less conventional. This cheese was already rather sweet because of the chunks of mango. We were curious about this and didn't expect it to pair as well as it did. The mango flavors complemented the apple/pear flavors in the Moscato. Since the cheese has sat with mango in it, the cheese itself has become kind of sweet. This made it only pair well with the Moscato because it made the rose taste drier and more bitter. 

We did enjoy the "spread" on the couch because we were tired from the walk... we also ended up cutting more of the cheese than we started out with, but we wanted to make sure it paired before we committed to a large amount of cheese.