Wine and Cheese Pairing #1

In this pairing, 3 different cheeses were each paired with 3 different wines.  The Wines picked out for this tasting were Moiselle Sweet Red Wine, Vina Robles Sauvignon, and Giretto Pinot Grigio.  These wines were paired with Jalepeno Havarti, Brie, and Applewood Smoked Gruyere cheeses. 

This wine and cheese pairing was done with 3 of my friends and it was overall a great experience both educationally and socially.  Each wine was paired with each of the cheeses and while some wine-cheese pairings worked really well, others not so much.  

Wine/Cheese Pairings

The Moiselle wine is a Sweet Red wine that is typically drank as a dessert wine but my friends and I decided to pair it with some cheese and see how it worked out.  It turns out that this wine paired well with all of the cheeses.  The sweetness of the wine was cooled down by the saltiness of the Applewood Smoked Gruyere.  The smoothness of the wine became very apparent when paired with the soft Brie cheese. The sweet red wine paired best with the Jalepeno Havarti cheese. The sweet wine with the spicy cheese gave a tangy sensation and brought out the fruity, sweet flavors of the wine even more.  

The Vina Robles Sauvignon Blanc is a semi-sweet white wine that has a very apparent taste of tarte green grapes.  This wine did not pair so well with the jalepeno havarti due to the fact that wine was not bold enough to mellow down the spice of the cheese.  The Sav Blanc paired exceptionally well with the brie cheese, as the soft taste of the Brie cheese really complimented the soft tarte taste of the grapes in the wine. As far as the gruyere cheese, this wine actually made the cheese taste a little bit better.  Before being paired with this wine, the cheese was a little too smoky for my palette.  Once paired with the sav blanc, the cheeses smokiness was mellowed down with the lightness of the wine.  

The Giretto Pinot Grigio is a dry white wine that I happened to not be a fan of at all.  This wine had a very charred smell to it and the taste of it seemed to be acidic and vinegary rather than tarte and fruity like typical Pinot Grigios.  Although I did not like the wine, it seemed to pair fine with the cheeses.  The charred smell of the wine paired well with the smoky taste of the Gruyere cheese and the cheese brought out a little bit of the smoky taste in the wine.  The presence of vinegary taste in the wine was brought down after pairing the wine with a soft brie cheese coating the mouth.  The pinot grigio was actually a good drink to wash down the spice of the jalepeno cheese due to its strong taste.  

The cheese eaten and paired with the wines was presented all together on a plate with an assortment of crackers as well as a few slices of prosciutto.  My friends and I snacked on the cheese and crackers while drinking the wines and discussing each of our experiences along the way. What a fun time!