☆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 ! :)