This wine dinner was a bit different than our usual wine dinner experience in order to accommodate the requirements for the class. While it used to be very common for us to drink three or more bottles in an evening, the loss of one of our four usual members to the tragedy that is graduation slowed our roll a little. This combined with the fact that we usually serve the different elements of the meal simultaneously in an "entree and sides" fashion instead of courses, made this meal feel really quite special. As such, we invested quite a lot of effort into its preparation, and I was quite pleased with the overall sensory experience.
The first course was some lovely roasted whole carrots, with a garlic and honey glaze over them, topped with fresh leafy greens and blackberries. We paired this with "Our Dog Blue", a semi-sweet, mostly Reisling-based white from the nearby Chateau Morrisette winery. This pairing was my favorite of the evening. The sweetness of each component complemented the others, where I feel a dry wine would've been exaggerated in an unpleasant matter. They were sweet in very different ways. The carrots and honey in an earthy, grounded way, and the wine in a more tree fruit or citrus manner. I enjoyed this pairing more than I would've enjoyed either of its components separately.
Our second course consisted of the only red of the night, Dry Canyon Cellars' Pinot Noir from California. We paired this with the pizza, as we felt the strongest flavors of the night would need the wine with the most body. And even though pinot noir is a light red, it best fit the bill. The pizza was my favorite food dish of the night. It consisted of a pesto and lemon base, with goat cheese and mozzarella baked on top. It was bright, herbaceous, a bit sour from the goat cheese and lemon, fatty from the olive oil and mozz, and the crust was cooked to perfection. The wine was not my favorite. It felt a little "hot" to me, in the sense that it felt like it had a bit more alcohol than it needed. It felt a little as though it were trying to drink me back. It was dry and acidic enough to cut through the fatty aspect of the pizza, which was a boon to the texture of each. However, it threatened to overpower the more subtle notes of the pizza if drunk directly before a bite, as its tannic and alcoholic levels were a little high. Overall, a decent pairing if the wine is drunk after, not before, a bite. If done in this manner, both the wine and the pizza are improved.
Our third course featured another Chateau Morrisette wine. This time their Pinot Grigio. It was pretty sweet for a Pinot Grigio. Certainly the sweetest I have ever had. The cacio and pepe was the third course. It's an Italian dish that is white, so it made sense to us to pair it with the Italian grape white wine we had. This was my least favorite pairing of the night. Despite cacio and pepe being a white sauce, I feel it would've gone better with a red that could've matched its pepperiness. The subtle flavors on the pasta of pepper and cheese got mostly washed away by the over-sweet wine. A dryer wine would have also been more appropriate. Each of these would have been better on its own.
Here are pictures of me with the various wines of the night.
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