Chianti and Parmesan

This week we switched away from California wines to try out a chianti. Neither of us have ever tried this type of wine so we were pretty excited.

During our initial sips Maria detected a hint of sweetness in smell and taste, a little oak, and a pleasant taste. Neil tasted a nice biting spice, fruits, definitely grape, and a smoothness.

Parmesan cheese is what you shake out of a can on pasta or pizza but who has tasted it as a wedge?

After the cheese Neil noticed a smoky oak flavor in the wine, and was expecting a nutty flavor from the cheese but its wasn’t there. Maria felt it was stronger tasting cheese that had a dry flavor. The wine was more bold after the cheese but still light.

Since we were having an Italian wine we added some artichokes to our tasting but there wasn’t much influence on the wine.

Typically after we taste the wine we look on the label to see how many of the flavors and aromas we correctly identified. This time the label only had a website no other information, so we headed to the internet to learn about chianti wine.

We found out that we picked a pretty good one because ours was an authentic chianti produced in the chianti Classico region of Italy. These bottles are marked by a rooster on the neck of the bottle. We also learned that chianti wine is made from a blend of grapes and not one specific grape.

It was a fun educational experience and a tasty wine! We look forward to trying it with dinner some night.