☆Tasting - Grifone - Primitivo

Another one of my great Trader Joe's finds - Grifone! This wine I bought last week when I was planning my meals for my dinner pairing night, but ended up not using this bottle! For the price tag of only $4 this old vine Zinfandel really surprised me!

I paired this wine with a. tomato bisque soup and some sour dough bread and although it may be an unlikely combo I think the two went well together. This wine had strong fruit and spice notes and I think the spice notes were what paired super well with the soup!  This wine was medium in boldness and had a lighter body for a red wine, but I did enjoy it. I think my enjoyment of this wine may have stemmed from the more bold and creamy soup which I had it with. The soup was definitely a heavier soup and was juxtaposed well with the wine so in the future I would like to have this wine with cheese or even on its own to see how it holds up !

☆ Fast Facts
Name:Grifone 
Variety: Zinfandel
Country: Italy
Year: 2018
Price: $4
Review:


Zinfandel in America…Primitivo in Italy…Mali Plavac in Croatia…For more than a millenium, the mystery grape of international viticulture travelled all over the world. Grifone is 100% Primitivo from old Zinfandel vines of Puglia region, a result of long study made in conjunction with local growers, trying to rediscover the original concentration of fruit, spices and flavours of this historical grape. Our Primitivo is soft and deep with flavorful vanilla notes and a long finish.

☆ Dinner Blog #1

I had so much fun with this weeks Dinner Blog Report and just like my cheese pairing I decided to just make a day of it! I made an Appetizer, Main Course, and Dessert and paired each with a different wine!

For the first course, the appetizer, I made bruschetta! I absolutely love bruschetta and fell in love with it in Italy when I was traveling with my family. I am so excited that I learned how to make it this week because I always love visiting my favorite restaurant back in Austin whenever I'm home, Mandola's, to get the best bruschetta in Austin.

For the second course, the Main, I made a creamy fehttuchini chicken dish, with sun dried tomatoes, spinach, and bacon and tomato to garnish it! This dish was also something new for me because usually I make very basic pasta dishes, but it was fun to experiment with new flavors, and I even got to cook with a dry wine to add into the pasta sauce!

For the dessert, my favorite dish of every meal, I made strawberry, chocolate, ganache brownies. each of these dishes was fun to make but I am a big chocolate girl and this one definitely took the cake ( no pun intended).

I bought all my wine and ingredients from both Trader Joe's and Walmart and really enjoyed planning out these recipes. Before I went to the store I got my shopping list all ready and thought about what pairings would be fun and different than what I would usually eat in my day to day life. I incorporated meals and flavors which are usually my favorite but I did want to step out of the box and cook something more complex than a usual college gal meal.

The appetizer was so yummy and tasted just like the bruschetta from my favorite restaurant in Austin. i thought that the Chianti wine was the perfect pairing for a meal with these flavors even thought it is not my typical favorite wine! My bruschetta had olive oil, garlic, itiallian bread, tomato, balsamic, and basil! The Chianti definitely helped bring out the olive oil and basil flavors while hiding the garlic as I had hoped. While I was cooking I thought that the garlic was going to over power my entire dish but I thought that the wine did a great job of bringing out all of the more hidden flavors. The Wine I choose for this appetizer pairing was. Chianti from Trader Joe's - Chianti Riserva Gaetano d' Aquino. I uncorked this wine for about 45 minutes to an hour as the bottle advised before serving the wine and the food. The Chianti felt quite spicy to me and was not my favorite wine while drinking it on its own but I do think it brought something new to this dish. Obviously, an Italian wine was a great choice to go with a very typical Italian appetizer, but this wine was very tart and just overall not something I would continuously pick up off the shelf.

My main course was my favorite because I absolutely loved all the flavors which came with the fehttuchini! I especially loved this meal because it gave me a greater appreciation for Chardonnay. I have never really been a chardonnay girl but the buttery sauce on the pasta was a great match with the buttery feel of the Chardonnay which I had ! The Chardonnay I purchased from Trader Joe's was a California bottle (2018) - Purple Moon Chardonnay. This wine was advised to be paired with roasted chicken, pasta, and fish, and I covered two of the three. The pasta I made was in a butter, dry wine , and heavy cream sauce, mixed with spinach leaves and sun dried tomato. To garnish my pasta I used bacon, spinach and sliced tomatoes and I would definitely make this meal and pair it the same way again. The wine was quite fruity forward but also gave a nice buttery after taste and strong mouthfeel for a white wine. The wine did not over power the dish at all and I was surprised that wish so many flavors being present in the dish, nothing was lost and the wine complimented each flavor, especially the sauce. The sauce as well as the sun dried tomatoes were my favorite part of this dish and I was very happy with my pairing choice!










Last but definitely not least, dessert! I made strawberry chocolate ganache brownies and they were amazing! I loved the juxtaposition between the dense brownie and ganache and the fruity sweet notes of the strawberry. This dessert was almost perfectly replicated in the wine which I paired dessert with. The Roulé Rouge blended red was a very basic table wine as it should be for around $6, but I did think its bold flavor of raspberry, cherry and blackberry. The nose of this wine is very prominent the second it is uncorked and I thought the strong aspect of this wine made my dessert even better than I thought it could. :)

I really did have so much fun doing this wine pairing activity and can't wait to do the next one with my family and friends. I also am excited to go out to meals with my family and be able to order the wine which correctly corresponds to the meal I order!

☆ DTN Blog 1

This DTN Activity, I chose to do Lesson 6 : Color Me Clueles : Is there Anything to a Wine's Color? The set I chose was the Zinfandels. I chose a Red Zinfandel and a White Zinfandel! I got my Red Zinfandel from Trader Joe's - Pure Bred Old Vine Zinfandel (2017) Lodi California.  My White Zinfandel, I got from Walmart - Oak Leaf Vineyards White Zinfandel (2018) Ripon, California!

 The Red Zinfandel is a lower intensity red than wines such as Cabernet Sauvignon and Syrah. The edges of this wine while in the glass are more light magenta rather than deep red. When you shine a light on a glass of this wine or take a picture with the flash, you can see the deep pink that a Red Zinfandel has although the name may be a little misleading.
The White Zinfandel is very

light pink and does not change much in the glass versus in the bottle. Whether a light is shone on it from above, below, or even on the edges the wine does not seem to change color at all. The White Zinfandel is very consistent in color at all angles. A very light pink, with peachy tones, once again misleading by the name as it is no where near white.




As I started with the lighter of the two, The White Zinfandel is very very sweet in taste. This wine is very refreshing and makes your mouth water and there is no dryness in sight! This Oak Leaf White Zinfandel is very fruity and the strongest note I taste is strawberry. The scent of this wine is very citrusy with strong notes of light red fruits overall.





The Red Zinfandel has a much stronger mouthfeel as I expected, it is very bold and upon first smell, I feel that it gives off much darker fruit notes. I smell blackcurrant and even blueberry. I personally like darker wines so this wine stuck out much more to me and I liked the bolder fruits in this wine. This wine had a very smoky finish and I definitely found some smokey notes as well.

☆Wine and Cheese Pairing - November 3rd

This week my Wine and Cheese pairing day was so fun!! Truly since this class started, I was always daunted by the task of pairing wines with meals and cheese and didn't even know where to begin. Today I had a fun relaxing Sunday and centered the day around wine! When I woke up I started to watch Youtube Videos and flip through my Wine Folly book to decide what cheeses and wines I wanted to pair today! I did my research made my shopping list and decided to step outside of Norman and take a baby road trip up to Oklahoma City and visit Trader Joes! Typically, I do my grocery shopping in Norman at Walmart so I decided to treat myself and have a more exciting day and go to Trader Joes!

Shopping list in hand I headed to the store and was excited and a little nervous because I felt a little bit out of my element but also excited to try somewhere new with different products! I really haven't branched out much in the cheese world and I have never tried to pair it myself! Recently, I have really become obsessed with Charcuterie boards but I hadn't dipped my toes in the water yet as I felt like i didn't have enough experience. I think this cheese pairing activity really gave me some experience and ideas for future dinner parities and I can't wait to go home for the holidays and make Charcuteries and know how to pair my wine and cheese when I am home with my family. I also was excited to check out the wine selection at Trader Joes! My mom had bought me some "2 buck chuck" wine for my 21st birthday last year so I was also enticed by the idea of some "college gal budget wine", but I hadn't been to see for myself yet!

Inside Trader Joes, I really liked their wine section and how it was set up. I thought all of the labels on the shelf were super informative and really helpful. If it wasn't so busy I could've stayed all day and taken pictures and more but I will try to find some online to enter. If I hadn't prepared in advance for what kind of wine I wanted and needed, it would've been super easy to go by solely the information and descriptors on the shelf! I also thought that they had a great variety of cheese

The way I built my shopping list was starting with cheese first and then deciding what I wanted to pair with it next. Since I am more experienced with wine at this point than I am with cheese, I thought I would begin with he cheese. Originally, I decided to do Feta, Gouda, and Brie, but upon further thought I decided to switch it up a little for pairing sake and switch the Brie for Feta! I wanted to have a white wine option as well so I decided Feta would pair well with Sauvignon Blanc.

The pairings I decided on were :

Sauvignon Blanc - Feta Cheese

Syrah-Shiraz - Parmesan Cheese

Cabernet Sauvignon - Gouda Cheese

After I got home and set up my cheese plate, uncorked all my bottles and set everything up I was ready for my first pairing! 

Feta & Sauvignon Blanc:

Based on preconceived notions I thought this would be my favorite pairing and it definitely was! I really liked the Feta crumbles and Sauvignon Blanc pairing because it was light and felt like and end of hotter weather kind of pairing! The wine I chose was Trader Joe's Costal Sauvignon Blanc 2018! This wine was $5 and I was very pleasantly surprised by the bang for my buck with this wine. This wine was very light and fruity with a medium body. I thought it paired well with the cheese but I do think the Feta left a much more lasting after taste than the wine did. The feta was very crumbly and salty and I really think it could be one of my new favorite cheeses. I think I had this notion that wine and cheese pairings were something that occurred in dark restaurants with fancy people and dark red wine with cheese which no one could pronounce, but obviously with this pairing I learned that was not the case. I really loved how light and almost summery this pairing felt as fall and winter are creepy in. I would definitely have this pairing again and would be interested to try this with a more expensive Sauvignon Blanc to see if it would be more powerful than the Feta cheese, or if it is just the nature of this pairing to be more cheese heavy than wine.

Parmesan Cheese & Syrah-Shiraz :

I have had shredded Parmesan a million times in restaurants, on top of food, always telling the waiter when to stop, my mom has bought parmesan blocks at home to shred into meals and use as a topping, but I don't think that until today, I have ever eaten straight Parmesan cheese. I was a little skeptical because in restaurants it has always been just a garnish to me, but I had high hopes because this is one of the few cheeses I am familiar with name wise! I was really excited about this wine pairing because I went to the store in search of a Syrah-Shiraz and the first one I saw was a label which I recognized from my parents collection, Francis Coppola! I think in the past I have tried a Cabernet from this label but this was a new one for me. I really liked this pairing and I learned that truly I didn't love the Parmesan by itself, but with the Syrah-Shiraz, I thought it was amazing. This wine was highly tannic and bolder in structure, the mouthfeel was smooth and bold and I loved this wine on its own and with the cheese. I got very deep notes of cherries and raspberries and smelled some herbal notes as well. This cheese was dry and salty and I really enjoyed it, I  think it would go great with an Italian meal as an appetizer or a cocktail party snack! Surprisingly, I think this darker red wine softened up this hard cheese. I usually would expect darker reds to be the "hard" part of a meal and a pairing, but I found the opposite to be the case here!

Gouda Cheese & Cabernet Sauvignon:

Last but not least, Gouda and Cab Sav! This paring 100% made me the most nervous. I had truly only heard about Gouda Cheese in my favorite movie "She's the Man" and had not even seen or smelled it in my entire life! When I was shopping the Gouda was obviously wrapped in plastic so I couldn't smell it either, but with my research on pairing I thought it was worth a shot to step out of my box! I am so glad I did because this pairing surprised me so much. I love Cabernet Sauvignon so I was very hopeful in that aspect and I do love trying new things so I thought Gouda could be something new

and fun. The wine I got for this pairing was MOON X Cabernet Sauvignon, which is a wine only sold at Trader Joe's! This wine was $8 and gave me deep notes of blackberries and chocolate. This wine very much complimented the Fruity aspect of the Gouda. I was extremely surprised by the Gouda and I think overall this was my favorite pairing. I think this wine and Gouda could also go very well with a rich meat dish such as steak and the mild cherry notes would be a great compliment. This cheese was very soft and melted in my mouth which I thought was a great match with the stronger more stark taste of the Cabernet Sauvignon. Another aspect of this pairing that I loved is that it was perfectly balanced, neither the wine nor the cheese out shone one another they were the perfect pair! I think the wine cuts through the heaviness of Gouda because when I tried the cheese on its own I did not enjoy it as much.

Overall, I feel like this pairing project really gave me new ideas about cheese and wine and I think it is going to be so fun to entertain during the holiday season and share what I have learned with my friends. I loved trying new things and i can't wait to step outside of my box even more next time and share my new learnings with other people ! :)