Rebekah's Wine and Cheese Tasting #2

 

 

The first wine I tried was the Chardonnay which I really enjoyed. When swirling and sniffing, I noticed a strong scent of apple and oak, as well as grapefruit, honey, and a hint of fresh grass. It was really light and semi-sweet with a hint of dryness, making the perfect scent. The taste was definitely more fruity than oaky, but you could still get the hint of oak with each sip. The strongest flavor was apple with side notes of honey and lime. The first cheese I tried this chardonnay with was the Murrays Raclette cheese. This cheese was super creamy and more on the neutral tasting side, but still a very good cheese. I really enjoyed this pairing as the creaminess went well with the smoothness of the chardonnay. There weren’t any flavors that I wanted toned down, and this cheese did a good job of enhancing all the flavors of the wine. The second cheese I tried with the Chardonnay was the Sartori Bellavitano Garlic Herb cheese. This was by far my favorite and best tasting cheese that I tried, but with the wine it wasn’t as good. The seasoning and taste from the cheese overpowered the wines flavor, which is why it’s not my first pairing choice. The last cheese I tried with the wine was the brie cheese. This was my least favorite pairing which really surprised me. To me the taste of brie is very smooth and creamy, which is why I thought it would taste really nice with the wine, but it didn’t. I think it might have been because it was heated and needed crackers to eat with, which threw me off. The main flavor that I got from the brie was just oily and it messed with the flavors in the wine to where I just wanted to drink it by itself.

The second wine I tried was the Chateau Morrisette Red Mountain Laurel. This was by far my least favorite wine I have ever tried. While smelling this wine I noticed a concord grape smell which smelled very good. It also smelled light and sweet with a hint of berry. The taste of this wine reminded me of the medicine I had drink as a kid; a very artificial grape flavor and super sweet, which is why I didn’t like it. It also had hints of flowery notes and was semi-acidic at the end. Trying this wine with the other cheeses was very hard because the flavor was so gross to me. The creaminess of the Murrays Raclette cheese made the wine easier to go down, but the taste was still strong as the flavors of the cheese weren’t very powerful. The Sartori Bellavitano Garlic Herb cheese was my favorite cheese with this wine, as it has such strong flavors, it helped mask the flavors I didn’t love. The brie cheese again wasn’t my favorite with this new wine since it didn’t really help add or hide any flavors of the wine. The wine almost soaked through the cheese taste, which wasn’t my favorite.

The third wine I tired was the Block Nine Pinot Noir. Since trying 2 other pinots, and liking them a lot, I really wanted to try another brand to see if I could taste a difference or have similar opinions. This wine reminded me of the Fat Cat pinot in the fact that it is really light and not a heavy, dry red, which made me really enjoy it. The smell was deeper than the other two wines I tried in this wine and cheese tasting, but not too deep where it was gross. Oak was the most prevalent smell, but there was also blackberry, a hint of honey, and a grass like smell to it as well. The taste was very smooth, almost buttery, but not as oaky as I would have thought from smelling it. There were also hints of tannic and honey at the end. My favorite cheese with this pairing was the Murrays Raclette cheese. The creaminess of this cheese really matched well with the smooth and buttery notes of this wine and even enhanced these characteristics of the wine. I also really liked the Sartori Bellavitano Garlic Herb cheese with this pinot because of its strong flavors. I particularly liked the sharpness of the cheese with the oaky flavor of the wine. Again, my least favorite pairing was the brie. I really want to try this cheese again, but unheated, to see if it makes a difference since it just gave a weird flavor to this wine.

I can conclude that some of my favorite wines now are chardonnay and pinot noirs, which really amazes me since reds used to scare me. I think my favorite wine and cheese pairing was the Chardonnay and Murrays Raclette cheese. I am definitely going to buy this combination again. My least favorite was the Chateau Morrisette Red Mountain Laurel with the brie, but I want to try brie again when it’s not heated. This wine and cheese tasting was extremely fun as I got to experience it with my family and close family friends while camping this past weekend. There’s no better way to relax than with camping, drinking wine and eating cheese!