We found a fellow WineAndCheese lover here in Quebradas, Costa Rica! Her name is Carol and she lives right down the road from us. Since she’s an expat, we can speak English, which makes it a little easier! We had already gotten together for wine and cheese before so I wanted to do it again as part of WineAndCheeseFriday. Also having some in-person time provided a nice break from all our Christmas video chatting.
Our final sparkling wine entry for February will showcase sparkling wines from Chile. During our time in Costa Rica and Panama, we have tasted many Chilean brands. When I discuss whats in my glass (#WIMG) on social media, it surprised people that Chilean wineries produced sparkling wines, since they aren't readily available in the US.
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.
Can you believe we’ve only had a handful of Wine and Cheese Friday sparkling wine entries? We really like this type of wine so we figured we could take this chance to learn some more, and who can resist the bubbly? Sparkling wine is always festive, but what better reason to drink some bubbles than Valentine’s Day. It’s only a few days away, you know. Learn more alongside us and then give a new bottle of bubbles a try on Feb. 14. Of course, we’ve got some cheeses in here too for you to pick up.
In December each year, we come up with some wine compilation entries to showcase some wines we tried throughout the year. This year we posted quite a few wines to Instagram that you might not have heard about. If you have an Instagram account, follow us @winecheesefri. If you don't use Instagram, you're in luck because you can still see our posts below. There's even a direct link to each post if you want to read through the comments or see a little more about each one.
When choosing this weeks wine we wanted a local wine and I was thirsty for some bubbly. The Fiesta Rosado seemed like just the trick. We tried the Fiesta brand back in 2015 just before we left Costa Rica, https://wineandcheesefriday.com/fiesta-vino-de-nance/. Since the previous wine was apple, we made sure to look for the graphic of grapes on this bottle of wine. Part of the reason we wanted a local wine and not a South American one was to pair it with the traditional fried cheese of Costa Rica. Simply ask at the cheese counter for Queso para Freir. I was happy when I was asked if I’d like the handmade (casero) or processed version! Did you notice that the lighting on these photos are a little off, that’s because we did this wine and cheese pairing during a power outage. Actually it was during Tropical Storm Nate that hit Costa Rica. What better way to take advantage of no electricity than to sit around tasting wine and cheese!