After the success of the first wine party I had with my family, all of my friends were supremely jealous and so we decided to put together our own wine party! It was awesome planning it and I love to cook which made it that much better! Me and two friends both took care of one course each and paired a wine with each one. I will warn you now though that the dessert didn't get a picture taken because we were all too drunk to do anything right... The fact that I have comprehensible notes for any of this is really a miracle. The celebration was in honor of our friend's brother coming to visit Virginia Tech in order to decide if he wants to come here. Clearly he is underage and he got sparkling cider in all of his cups because that's illegal!
Anyway, I took care of appetizers because I love that you can be creative with them and do different stuff without the commitment and need to fill everyone up. I prepared a Caprese (my favorite ABP sandwich) with a twist. Instead of tomato, I used watermelon in honor of the warming weather and finished it all with a honey-balsamic sauce that mixed well with the sweetness of the watermelon and tang of the mozzarella cheese. Plus, food on a stick is just fricking awesome! Here's a picture!
To pair with this weird concoction (yeah cheese and watermelon? outta this world right?) I thought what would cut through the strange flavors of dairy and fruit as well as strong sour flavor of balsamic? The answer? VINHO VERDE!
Now bear in mind I was with college students who are not in this class, so when it came to giving me descriptions they were reclusive and not very good. This vinho verde in my opinion was really good! Perfect the spring weather aas a casual sipping drink. The overall taste started out as a seltzer water and progressed to straight fruit. The fruit was apricot-like and a little bit of pear. A bright punch of acidity and also a little dry too. My friends came up with bubbly (cause there was bubbles, and took a 10 minute conversation to convince them it wasn't champagne), sharp, fruit on the finish, and tickles the palate.
The food was a little strange at first, but the flavors did blend together quite well and everyone who was hesitant at first did enjoy it, so I was happy. Drinking the wine with the food definitely changed the flavors in everyone's mouth too. My friends said there was a vanilla quality, it was a lot bubblier, it tasted like "yellow," and not as sweet. I did agree it got a little dryer, but I was mostly amazed at how it cut out the acidity of the balsamic perfectly. Eating the food did leave mouth a little burnt from the acid in the balsamic, but this wine cleansed my palate beautifully. Overall the first course was a success and the size was perfect for other activities to happen before the main dish was served...
The main dish was oven-roasted salmon, with seasoned broccoli, and garlic mashed potatoes and bacon mixed in too. Everything was cooked deliciously and tasted so good. A nice hearty meal with just a little bit of acidity from the lemon on top of the salmon.
When it came to pairing a wine with it though, me and my friend were arguing in the wine section of Kroger until we both decided to just get two bottles from the same maker, and only slightly different. The Chardonnay had a description of crisp and fresh while the Chardonnay-Riesling was more smooth and creamy. I reasoned that acidity in the fish would pair better with the Chardonnay and she said that the cream-dill sauce we had would pair better to the Chardonnay-Riesling. So we put both to the test, and the results were mixed. I did taste both, and in my opinion I liked the Chardonnay better. But I was biased and inebriated, so I'll leave it up to you all to try.
The flavor of this wine alone was a strong acidic componet which i really liked, but my freinds said was pretty bad. They agains said it tasted like "yellow" and pee. I think it tasted more like lemons than anything else. With the food, it became more pronounced acidic and added a fuller body to it. The lemon on top of the fish went well with this and the play on the two was really good. No one else really drank it though and hence why I never got around to taking pictures of the dessert.
While everything tasted "yellow" to my friends up to this point, here they said it tasted like "green," but it still smelled like pee. However, this pee was smooth? Someone said it burnt the back of their throat and they regretted every sip, but I don't think they were used to drinking wine period. A lot of the same flavor profiles of bright citrus, lemon and lime, like the other one, but it was definitely mellowed out more than the chardonnay and smoother. When drank with the food, it almost got a creamy aspect to it, but the combo of sweet and creamy with citrus didn't mix as well as it sounds on paper. It kinda reminded me of like a really herby sauce and I was not as into it as the chardonnay alone, too much going on.
Here is the entire happy bunch enjoying dinner... please note the several different containers for each wine and other beverages. I had three in front of me which would not fair well for later. However, all the wine paired well with those mashed potatoes because I ate seconds and thirds of that stuff.
We then took a bit of a break and everyone was too full for dessert, so we just relaxed and let all the wine set in... Many hours later, I was craving something sweet and luckily we had the perfect remedy. For dessert we had a rich dark chocolate pie with raspberry filling and raspberries on top. The perfect dessert mix of citrus, sour, with sweet chocolate. What better to pair that with that than a sweet red wine, and the most jumbo bottle we could find was yellow-tail. I was skeptical at first, but it actually was really nice.
The wine had a strangely dry, bitter component to it, but I can't remember if I drank any without the food and that may have hindered the evaluation of it. The mix of chocolate citrus, and cherries in the wine was simply divine and perfect end-cap to the meal. I wanted to eat more, but I was so full of food and wine that I barely finished the meager portion I had. The creaminess of the chocolate blended into the wine and gave it a creamy aspect that was decadent. I'm glad it wasn't just a chocolate dessert too, because I feel like I would have gotten bored with it. The pops of citrus and acidity and little bit of dry aspect added a nice depth and body to the pairing that even my impaired psyche could comprehend.
And that sums up this wine dinner, a definite adventure of creamy textures and sharp acidity. I'm really starting to figure out my palate and this meal was a crucial point for that too, especially now that I wrote it all down. I really am off-put by creamy aspects of wines, like an oaky buttery chardonnay and really am driven towards sharp, crisp, fresh, acidity especially when it comes to chardonnays. I guess that's why I gravitate towards chardonnays and vinho verde while generally steering away from sauvignon blancs. Overall, this dinner was about having fun and tasting wine with my friends, and in that sense it was definitely a great success.
