We heard about this wine during one of our previous trips to Costa Rica but couldn’t find it until this year. The wine is made from cashews and we really thought hard about how a wine could be made from nuts. We were telling someone about it and they said “Oh silly, the wine is made from the fruit, not the nut!” Did you know cashew was a fruit?? Just shortly after finding the wine in one of our local licorerias (liquor stores) we came across the fruit in the farmer’s market. We told the farmer that we’d be tasting the wine soon so he gave us one of the fruits to taste too.
Neil went out of town for work at the end of January so I figured that’d be a great time to have my neighbor Valerie over for some wine! We’ve done a few wine tastings together* and it’s always a fun time! She usually likes white wines so I thought this Rhône Blend would be something new for her to try. (Sadly, this wine is our final one from our Christmas present at West Palm Wines.) Without looking at the label, I gave her some varietals that would be in the wine and she set out to find some foods to pair with it. She was really into it and found the appropriate cheeses, fruits and even snack mix to complement the wine. Her research pointed her to Gouda, Double Gloucester and green and red pears. So without further ado, our night of wine, cheese, fruit and analysis!
Since Neil and I are the Wine And Cheese Couple, people look forward to drinking wine with us. While we were visiting our home in Florida, some neighbors came over to have WineAndCheeseFriday with us. We were excited to find some wines and cheeses that might be a little more out of the ordinary so we went to a local natural food market called Rollin Oats. (http://rollinoats.com) We found the Grenache Noir, made with 100% grenache grapes, which is definitely different than what you would find in any of the big grocery stores around here. They also carried a nice selection of cheeses but we can never resist a Gouda, especially a cheese made with a milk other than cow’s milk.