Wine Dinner #1

Wine Dinner

My friends and I got together for a potluck style dinner of good wine and good food.  Since we could not decide on a particular country/style of cooking, the theme of this dinner became "American Smorgasbord."

The Wines:

Name: Alice White Shiraz

Variety: Shiraz

Year: 2012

Country: Australia

Name: Main Street Winery Cabernet Sauvignon

Variety: Cabernet Sauvignon

Year: 2011

Country: California, USA

Name: Cruz Garcia Real Sangria

Variety: blended wine

Year: no vintage year

Country: Spain

The Homemade Food:

Fried Chicken
Cheesy Scalloped Potatoes with Bacon
Sausage Dip
Sourdough Rye Bread

Tasting Notes:

The whole group at dinner! (No dining room table available so seating is where you can find it!)

The Shiraz on its own was a lighter red wine, tasted strongly of cheery and a little hint of pomegranate and raspberry.  It was surprisingly sweet and light for a Shiraz, and quite enjoyable.  I paired this wine with the homemade sourdough rye bread, which on its own was a very dense and bland bread.  The bread mellowed the wine out, making it more simple and easier to drink.  In turn, the wine made the bread taste sweeter and more flavorful.  It was an interesting combination, and one that I liked surprisingly well.  I also paired this wine with the scalloped potatoes.  This was a great complement.  It brought out the fruit flavors in the wine more, and made the potatoes taste heartier and more flavorful.

The Cabernet Sauvignon on its own was a really good wine.  It was sweet and simple with strong flavors of blackberry, plum, and dark, jammy fruit.  I paired this wine with the fried chicken and the sausage dip.  It worked well with both of the meat dishes at the dinner.  The hearty meat dishes made the wine taste sweeter and brought out the fruit flavors.  The food took away all of the acidity that I could taste when I drank the wine on its own, without food.  The contrast of this sweeter, fruity wine was a good pairing for the main dishes of this dinner.  The full flavors of both the chicken and sausage dip were brought out by this wine, which was a very enjoyable dinner.  Going into this, I did not think that fried chicken could be paired well with wine and I am happy to say I was proven wrong!

The blended Sangria wine was not very good on its own.  It was overly sweet and tasted of sugar, green apple, strawberry, and citrus (especially oranges).  I do not enjoy wines this sweet without any real body or richness of flavor and I would not recommend drinking it on its own.  However, once I drank the wine with the sausage dip and tortilla chips it improved the flavor.  The wine became more complicated and hearty and developed more of a fruity taste with less overwhelming sweetness.  This sweet wine was an average pairing with the sausage dip, not the greatest wine in general, but definitely improved when pairing it with a hearty meat dish.

This was a really fun experience! My friends and I had a great time cooking all our favorite foods and tasting a variety of wines to see which ones paired the best.  Some of combinations did not work out as well as expected and some were surprisingly good.  I look forward to experimenting more with various wine and food combinations to figure out which are my favorites!