Dinner Blog: “Family time with a few bottles of wine!”

This year I decided to enjoy my last spring break at home with my family. Coming from a large, loud Italian family, wine is always a part of our gatherings, so I thought doing a wine pairing dinner would be a lot of fun! My parents, one of my sisters and brother-in-laws, and my boyfriend participated in this dinner. As an appetizer, I bought a few cheeses and grapes to pair with two bottles of wine. We had sharp cheddar cheese, imported provolone cheese, and parmesan reggiano. I chose to pair a Cabernet Sauvignon with the provolone cheese, and a Syrah with the cheddar cheese. As a side note, these wines were on sale at the wine store! Score! 

Parmesan reggiano, sharp cheddar, and provolone cheese along with red seedless grapes.

        The Cabernet Sauvignon was a 2011 by Clos du Bois from the Sonoma Valley, California. Everyone agreed that it smelled like black berries, cherries, and earthy. The taste of this wine was of rich fruit, medium alcohol, and plums. It was fairly oaky as well. Drinking this wine with the provolone cheese was delicious! It really helped to smooth out the tannins in the wine. However, this wine did not complement the parmesan cheese as well. My mom suggested that this would be an ideal wine to have with meat in a gorgonzola cream sauce! I can't wait to try that next time!

Clos Du Bois Cabernet Sauvignon $20.00

Next we tasted Campuget’s 2010 Syrah from the Rhone Valley in France. This wine smelled sweeter than the previous wine, the Cabernet Sauvignon, although we all thought that it did have a slight isopropyl alcohol odor to it as well. After tasting this wine, it was much thinner bodied than the previous wine. It did seem to be high in tannins, but these were mellowed by the cheddar cheese. This wine was alright with the parmesan cheese, but the cheddar was definitely better. While my parents preferred the Cabernet Sauvignon, my sister, brother-in-law, boyfriend, and I all preferred the Syrah instead. 

Campuget Syrah $9.99

My brother-in-law, dad, and boyfriend enjoying their wine and cheese.

My mom was excited to try the Cabernet!

        For dinner, I decided to make a meal of herb encrusted pork, mashed potatoes, peas, and dinner rolls. The pork was marinated in balsamic vinegar, olive oil, garlic, rosemary, thyme, salt, and pepper. Everyone helped me to prepare dinner and we were excited to try it all with a Pinot Noir. We ate dinner with a 2010 Garnet Pinot Noir from Napa Valley, California. To our surprise, this wine did not have much of a nose to it. It tasted very smoky to several of us and reminded my mom of a cigar. It had a medium body to it and was fairly oaky. It did however complement the pork well. Everyone agreed that this wine was great with the pork and would have it again!

Garnet Pino Noir $11.99

Herb encrusted roasted pork.

Yum!

Dinner is served!

Delish!

Taking notes!

Rachel sippin' some wine!

Since there were six of us, three bottles of wine was definitely not enough! So, we decided to try a few others as well: two Chardonnay’s, a New York red, and a homemade Zinfandel. To hear more about these wines, look for my upcoming wine tasting blogs about them!

This was such a fun night at home that was really relaxing (especially after tasting seven bottles of wine!) We laughed for hours at the table and enjoyed comparing our wine palates with each other. Everyone truly enjoyed this experience and are excited to try it again soon!

Success!