Easter Pairings!

Where did March go?? Here we are at Easter time and I never did a blog for March...yikes!

As we prepare for an Easter feast with family and friends, we bring out the ham. What wine pairs with ham?? That is one of the hardest foods to pair with wine because it is usually salty, with or without honey glaze and maybe even smoked, but all with salt. Ok...lets think of who is actually writing this blog :) My favorite is always bubbles and you know sparkling wine pairs wonderfully with ham. But in case you don't care for that...a dry Rose' is always nice.

Are you doing an Easter brunch with all the fixin's...pancakes, eggs & bacon... more salt but also more complex with both sweet & salty. Again, my go to wine is sparkling because it does truly pair with salty foods, but a Rose' will be nice as well as a light white wine with no oak and more fruit.

I hope everyone has a wonderful Easter.

Cheers!!

Girl Scout Cookie Time...

Well...what can I say...just received my shipment of Girl Scout cookies and the first thing I thought of was, lets pair them with wine?!

Samoa was first up and was quite delicious with the Corcoran Malbec, the chocolate and carmel with the crisp cookie middle...yummy!! Our Malbec is very light in comparison to the Argentinean Malbecs, who has a much longer grower season then us, here in Virginia. So that means lots of spice, some acid and a bit of fruit for us.

Next up was the Tag-a-long, milk chocolate covered cookies with creamy peanut butter in the middle (ok...yummy on its own)...what wine shall I choose?? I pulled the Corcoran Chambourcin because of it doesn't have a lot of tannins and is quite light in taste...it did quite well paired with this chocolate covered, peanut butter cookie, I must say!

Last of the evening, but most certainly not least, was the Thin Mint....what to have with a dark chocolate covered chocolate flavored mint cookie??? Ok...I opened the Hunters Run Red, another light red with a Cabernet Franc base blended with Barbera and Tannat. I was thinking that because of the light tannins it would pair good with the chocolate, but the mint does take over here and found it hard to taste all the complexities of the wine with so much other flavors from the cookie...after one cookie and a nice size glass of wine, it paired well...which makes it nice so that I don't eat too many cookies :)

Cheers!!

Toast to a New Year!

We rung in a new year and brought out the bubbles...Champagne or Sparkling Wine, but why do we only drink these on New Years or special occasions? I don't, but do you??

Sparkling Wine is something that can be paired with just about everything and comes in a variety of styles to please almost every palate. Some styles are called Ultra Brut (bone dry) to Extra Brut to Brut to Extra Dry to Dry/Secco, to Demi-Sec (sweet) to luscious which is often called Sweet/Doux. With so many options, why not cleanse the palate prior to a meal with a dry sparkling like a Cava, enjoy one with some sweetness during a brunch like an Asti or have a sweet one alone for dessert.

Make tonight a special occasion and enjoy some bubbles!

Happy New Year!