Wine & Cheese Pairing--March 31st, 2016

Yesterday, a few of my friends and I got together to do a wine and cheese pairing. What started out as an innocent night completing an assignment for class turned into one of the best (and blurriest) nights I've had at Virginia Tech.

Being the broke college kids that we are, we decided to limit ourselves by spending only $15 each on a wine and cheese. The result? Three of Kroger's cheapest wines and a couple of cheese sticks we managed to find rummaging through our fridge (okay, I was the only one who brought cheese sticks to the table BUT it was Sargento and not some off-brand phony cheese!!!).

We cut the cheese (heheh), sliced some apples, arranged the crackers and turned on the 3-hour burning yule log Netflix feature before getting down to business. (Don't let the refined ambiance fool you, we were still dressed like bums). 

Enough of my babbling, let's get to the point:

Wine #1:

Name: Rex Goliath

Variety: Zinfandel
Region: Acampo, California
Country: United States
Year: NA
Price: $4.99

-This was the wine that I purchased. I have had and, for the most part, liked Zinfandels so I figured this would be a good choice (the rooster was an added bonus). This wine looked a lot like cranberry juice. On the nose, I got dark cherries with hints of plum and a little grass. The alcohol (13.5%) definitely made itself known (still not convinced my nasal passages aren't burnt...). To the taste, this wine was VERY smooth, but had no real defining flavor.

-The cheese pairings definitely added some flavor to this wine. The colby jack cheese brought out the tannins and, at first, had the opposite effects cheese pairings are supposed to have (muting the tannins and bitterness to bring out the fruit) but after another swig, there was a cranberry explosion in my mouth. With havarti cheese, this wine became almost smokey and a little artificial grape-y. With sharp cheddar, this wine got sweeter but still lacked a defining flavor. Moreover, I got a hint of wet cardboard with the cheddar. 

-Overall, this wine was good but definitely not something to write home about. I would give it an 86.

Wine #2:

 

Name: Woop Woop

Variety: Shiraz
Region: South Eastern
Country: Australia
Year: 2014
Price: NA (I'm guessing not more than $7)

-WOOP WOOP! Even if this wine turned out to be just water with red food dye (which it still might be), I think it still would've been the crowd favorite simply because of its name (yes, there was a chorus of WOOP WOOPs allllllll night). This wine was very dark and opaque. On the nose, I got an overwhelming sense of dark fruits with hints of pepper. It tasted exactly how it smelled--cherries, ripe green peppers with hints of vanilla, and extremely bitter. I was really shocked at how not hot the finish on this wine was considering it had 13.8% alcohol...

-The cheese pairings had similar effects on this wine than they did on the first. The colby jack brought out the flavor immensely. I should honestly leave it at that because it was such a great combination that there was no need to try it with the other cheeses (but I did anyway, don't worry). The harvati unfortunately did not really do too much for me, and the sharp cheddar definitely made this wine sweeter.

-WOOP WOOP I would give this wine a w(h)o(o)ping 89.

Wine #3:

Name: Root:1

Variety: Cabernet Sauvignon 
Region: Colchagua Valley
Country: Chile
Year: 2013
Price: NA (I'm guessing not more than $7)

-Wow, what a wine. By far my favorite from the evening. This wine had a dark ruby color. On the nose, it was very earthy (appropriately named). I was getting a bouquet full of green peppers, mushrooms, and little bit of mold. The flavor profile of this wine was incredible-- despite its earthy aroma, I was getting sweet strawberries and bubble gum with a little hint of pepper on the finish. Even with 13.5% alcohol, this wine was just so well crafted.

-The cheese pairings did not really help this wine, but they also did not hurt it. With the colby jack, this wine became more similar to its aroma with the green pepper reasserting itself on my palette. The havarti did the same although there was no real defining flavor with it--overall, just significantly more earthy. The sharp cheddar made this wine a bit more smooth, but other than that, it didn't really do much.

-10/10 would buy this wine again and/or recommend it to anyone. Definitely a 91.

After tasting all of the wines with all of the cheeses, we decided it would be a waste if we did not finish the wines (and we could not have been more wrong...). We toasted to ourselves for making it this far in our college careers without any major mishaps and poured the remaining wine down the hatch before heading downtown.