Aprul 15th saw the last of the wine tastings I
would do as an undergraduate student at Virginia Tech, and it was definitely
bittersweet. And by bittersweet, I mean delicious.This week, we tried both red and white wines, and I was joined by some old friends - friends from Freshman year, and classmates, Kristin, Sinclair and Melissa. :)
The foods to accompany the wines that we had this week were the same as the previous tasting, but were just as delicious as well. This week that old addage of 'drink what you like' definitely rang true for me. Matt stressed this throughout the tasting, and really explained to us that it's not about the price or the grape or really even the rating that these wines get - that we should really just go after what we know that our pallates preper.
So, we began by walking in, and seeing this brand new chalkboard sign which was quite lovely - and a shamless promotion for virginiawine.org. :) I was surprised to see boyer wine on there, instead!
This is Melissa, Sinclair, and Kristin drinking some water and beginning to wait for the tasting to start. We actually got there early that week, unlike most weeks!
This was some crackers, red pasta, and garlic/olive oil bread that we tried ahead of the wines - mostly to check out the flavors of the food. I loved this bread last time, also, and there really is just something to be had in drying out your mouth with that bread but then coming back and having a fantastic, fruity, tasty wine to moisten your mouth and attack your pallate all over again.
So, overall, I ended up a little buzzy after this tasting because we tried NINE different wines. I am only going to highlight the ones that I appreciated the most, though. The first that I would like to mention was the Muscanti NV Brut Sparkling Wine Penedes Spain. With an alcohol content of 11.5% The flavor of the wine was very citrusy and appley - something like a large lemon combined with a granny smith apple within the wine itself. The wine was a spanish sparking wine, and thus was not actually a champagne (because it is not from France). The flavors of the wine seemed a little less earthy than a majority of the wines that I have drank so far in my life. It had a bit of a tart, tingle-like bite at the end of the flavor, and Matt told us that this was attributed to the fact that it is not made in the traditional methode champenoise, which is used for carbonating wines. Instead, it was made with Cava grapes, which are known to have that crisp, acidic bite.
Matt did a great job this semester of leading, organizing and puttin on these wine dinners - this was probably my favorite one so far due to the variety of wines that we were able to try.
As I previously mentioned, the quality of the food was fantastic. There really is something fantastically intentional about the blending of Italian foods with Italian wine. Everyone loves Italian food and naturally wants to pair Italian wines with this cuisine. What are the best pairings of Italian wine and food? I'm not really sure but these were fantastic.
This was my second favorite wine that we tried, and of course it was a Cabernt Sauvignon. This was the San Elias 2010 Cabernet Sauvignon, at 13.5 percent alcohol content, and only eight bucks per bottle. For some reason the number one word that jumped out at me when I tasted this wine was SOAP. BUT, for some reason, I didn't dislike that, as oddly as that sounds! The scent was very strong, and tasted a lot like strong cleaning product. After a little bit of research, I discovered that the San Elias Cabernet is the product of Vina Siegel, a winery founded by Alberto Siegal, a Chilean man with German roots. SO that would probably explain my pleasure with the wine - I'm not a big fan of Spanish wines, but I do love a lot of German wines, both white and red. Today, Vina Siegel has a state of the art winery surrounded by 450 hectares of vineyards, ideally located in the Colchagua Valley. Many different varietals are grown, but their Cabernet Sauvignon stands out from the rest. It's bursting with rich aromas of black cherry and cassis, which lead to a fruit forward palate blended with notes of smoke and spice. Sweet persistence, soft tannins, and pleasant acidity make this wine an excellent pairing for pasta, red meat, and a variety of cheeses - just like what Zeppoli's gave us!
Here is a look at every single wine that we tried on the 15th of April at Zeppoli's Italian Restaurant in Blacksburg, Virginia.
The last wine that I would like to go into detail about is the Mars and Venus Merlot 2007 Central Valley Chile, at 13.5% alcohol, and only nine dollars per bottle. This wine was extremely hot - as I think that most Merlot's are. It is actually the house Merlot for the restaurant. It went particularly well with the cheese ravioli, which I thought was a bit sweet, and it went a step toward balancing out all of those flavors.
The pesto pieces were delicious, but they ran out of that paste and the bread, so we had to settle on a salad to accompany our final wines.
Another picture of the Merlot from Central Valley Chile next to the one from Sonoma (Trentadue 2009 Block 500 Merlot Sonoma County California, $18.99/bottle, 14.6% alcohol).
Kristin and I at the end of the night! :)
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