For this week’s Wine And Cheese Friday entry we’ll be featuring our first pairing during this trip to Costa Rica. We love visiting Costa Rica, but have found it challenging to find a wine and cheese selection that coincides with our palates. Wine can be found in local grocery and liquor stores here in Pérez Zeledón, but the selection is usually limited. Sweet wines are more popular here, whereas we prefer something drier and more complex, and most wines we find are from Chile and Argentina. Since we’ve visited three times previously, we’ve found our staple brands to enjoy on a regular basis, but are always hoping for something new and interesting. Imagine our surprise when we came across a Sicilian brand that had been previously featured on #WiningHourChat! We made a mental note and went back a week later to pick up the bottle of Stemmari Nero D’Avola.
We continue through the month of February with more sparkling wine! We did this tasting with Always Five Star (Pam) and her husband, John, during our trip out to California. Their home on Seal Beach was our first stop in the state. And really who else would you expect us to drink sparkling wine with? They already had a cheese shop picked out for us to visit, Cheese Addiction. Sounds right up my alley! We didn't need an occasion to eat cheese and drink sparkling wine but it just so happened that Pam hit 10k Instagram followers while we were there! Let the celebrating begin.
Cheeselovers Day is only a few days away. What better way to celebrate than with a pairing of 4 wines and 4 cheeses! We did the tasting for this entry back in the summer during our visit to Lake Erie Wine Country. One of our favorite things about wine and cheese in this area is the Reverie Creamery and Market in Mayville, NY. They have such a great selection of not only their own cheeses but many of the big hitters too. We’ve made a trip out to this shop a few times along with our annual wine tasting voyage around the lake. Actually the tradition now includes the wine tastings, the visit to the cheese shop, and a group tasting with family.
This week’s WineAndCheeseFriday is Spanish with an Italian twist. When we were walking home from dinner last week we saw a small Italian shop with homemade cheese, Quo Vadis. We figured we should stop in this week to pick up some of their Queso Maduro to try with wine. After we paid for the cheese, we were talking with the owners and found out that they also make various fruit wines, limoncello, marmalades, chocolate, and smoked ham. It all looked so wonderful and we even had a chance to do some sampling. We figured we should go for the total package so we purchased an orange wine and marmellata de cebollas (onion jelly!) to have with our cheese.