We’re spending some time with Neil’s sister, Marilou, so we planned to have her join us for WineAndCheeseFriday. On Friday, she came home and said “today is WineAndCheeseFriday, right?” We were excited to have the supplies ready and waiting in the fridge upon her request.
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.
At the beginning of the week, we took a trip out to Hacienda Chan Chan, http://haciendachanchan.com. They are a dairy farm that recently started offering lodging for people who want a day, or maybe week, out in the country. It is located only about 45 minutes from where we are staying in Cuenca, Ecuador and can be accessed by one of the local busses and then a short taxi ride up a dirt road.
We hit the road for WineAndCheeseFriday this week. While we were out a couple weeks ago, we walked passed a store called “Like Liquors and Lounge”, https://www.facebook.com/Like-Liquors-Lounge-223762377816761/?fref=photo. We decided to stop in that day and see what they had. It was a liquor store with a bar inside. We looked around and found some local whiskey to try and when we paid, the cashier told us you can buy wine, beer, liquor, etc and then sit down and drink whatever you bought. This seemed like a pretty fun idea so we headed there last night to grab a bottle of wine and check out the atmosphere! There was another store nearby that sold only wine and cheese so we picked up a cheese on the way there.
This weeks WineAndCheese not only rhyme, they look like the same word. This was all coincidence with what we found this week in Ecuador. The wine is Chilean and it is sold at a place simply called “Winery”, of course it caught our eye when we walked by. There was no wine made there but a wide range of wines available, including Penfolds, Veuve Clicquot and an assortment of South American wines. We chose the Carmenere by Cono Sur since we’ve only tried this varietal once or twice before and wanted to learn more about it. We found the cheese at our local grocery store, Supermaxi. Although we are not familiar with the brand Floralp, it said it was made in Ecuador, so we had to try it.
We’ve been in Cuenca, Ecuador for two weeks now so we figured it was time to try some local flavor. Our wine was purchased at a local monastery and all we knew about it was that it was white wine made there. Our cheese had a funny story, we were in a restaurant one night and our conversation lead to the fact that we review cheeses, so we were given directions to a local market to buy this cheese. The market was about a 40 minute walk from our place but we were up for an adventure! Once we arrived we did our best to understand that this cheese was called Queso Amasado and that it was made in a village named Tarqui. Now onto the tasting notes.