Wine Dinner #1

February 20, 2017

My friends and I celebrated Valentine’s Day a little late by having a wine dinner at our apartment. We cooked a lasagna as the main course with a Caesar salad on the side, and for dessert we had some delicious “monster” cookies that my mom sent me.

We tasted three different wines throughout the night as well. In an effort to get a good mixture of different flavors and pairings, I chose white and red varieties to try. While I am the only one out of the four of us in the Geography of Wine class, and it was interesting to get the others' perspectives on the wines and how the foods blended with their meals.

The first wine that I tried was the Mallee Point Chardonnay, and this was my favorite wine of the night! This wine blended very nicely with both the salad, as well as the lasagna making it a great choice to have at the dinner table. The wine is from Australia, with a vintage year or 2015. On the nose, it had a fruity smell with elements of peaches and pineapples. The taste was very refreshing and had some buttery notes to it in addition to the fruity flavors that went along with the smell. The wine is $7.49 at total wine.

Total Wine's Description: "South Eastern Austrailia- This Chardonnay flaunts aromas of fresh tropical fruit with touches of coconut and vanilla oak. It shows hints of peach and melon and is smooth and easy to drink. Super party wine! Enjoy with seafood, chicken, or salads."

This wine was also a gift from my mom, so special thanks to her for providing!

The next wine was Chateau Morrisette Sweet Mountain Laurel. This is a wine that I was able to try last weekend when I went to a tasting at the Chateau Morrisette vineyard. This white table wine was relatively sweet and paired nicely with the savory, spice of the Caesar salad! While the pairing with the lasagna was okay, it didn’t pair as well as the Chardonnay or the Merlot that we tried last. The group of us all thought this wine basically smelled and tasted like grape juice! This wine did go nicely with the cookie for desert, as the sweetness of the wine complimented the sweet cookie. Unfortunately, I didn’t get a picture of this wine on the table with our meal; however, I’ve included a picture of the bottle’s label. This wine was $8.99 at Food Lion.

Total Wine's Description: Virginia- A unique and refreshingly sweet dessert style wine made from Native American grape varieties. Firm acidity balances the sweetness, producing a crisp finish with aromas of freshly picked grapes.

The final wine that we tasted was the Bay Bridge Merlot. This was a wine that my roommate bought at Kroger a few weeks ago for $3. We figured if the wine wasn’t good, we didn’t spend a lot of money on it and it was worth a shot! The Merlot paired very nicely with the lasagna, but didn’t go as well with the Caesar salad. The richness of the merlot brought out sweetness in the marinara sauce. This wine also paired well with the cookie, particularly the large chunks of m&m’s and chocolate. The wine had a slight sweetness to it, and some notes of berry and grape flavoring. We tried a few other Bay Bridge wines for $3 (why not?) one of which is the Chardonnay pictured that I used in a cheese pairing in a previous post. Despite their low cost, we all enjoyed them and would probably buy them again! I was unable to find a description/professional review for this wine.