Pinot-Vember, Pinot Noir and Manchego

Neil was doing his programming thing this weekend so we decided to do wine and cheese a little different. Usually we taste the wine and cheese side by side and compare notes. This time we tasted separately, lets see if it changes anything…

When we began judging the wine, we agreed it was a lighter wine. I was having a hard time identifying specific aromas, but I briefly noticed fruit and something that reminded me of cake. It didn’t seem earthy or oaky like the wine last week. Neil found plum, a slight spice and maybe something floral. I tasted oak and fruit with a spice finish, but it seemed kind of boring, mainly just spice. Neil described the flavors as delicate and plum with a minimal spice. There we go again with our different palates, one lots of spice, the other with hardly any spice!

This weeks cheese is Manchego. We had read that sheep’s cheese would pair nicely with Pinot Noir and have not tried Manchego yet, so here goes. We both noticed the cheese to be salty, and mild. I said it was dry and hard while Neil thought it was crumbly and soft but we both liked it.

During the wine and cheese pairing, Neil felt the Pinot Noir didn’t hold up to the Manchego, which seemed strange to him. He said the cheese was more flavorful than the wine. Specifically, the cheese added crispness to the Pinot Noir and the wine made the Manchego stronger. I liked the wine better after combining it with the cheese because it seemed more flavorful. The wine had more of an oak flavor and less spice and the cheese got drier. No new flavors appeared from this pairing.