We recently took a trip to visit Neil’s family in Erie, Pennsylvania and decided to make a trip out to their Wine Country, http://www.lakeeriewinecountry.org. What a strange feeling it is to be driving around “up North” and feel like you are in Wine Country. I remember a past trip to visit and asking why there were so many grapes and finding out that Welch’s is based nearby. As you may expect, this would mean that many of the grapes are the Concord varietal but there are quite a few different varietals that thrive in this climate near the lake. There are over 25 wineries available to visit in this region but we limited ourselves to just one, Heritage Wine Cellars, http://heritagewine.biz.
This was our final “Swiss” cheese. Benno said it was another cheese that he really liked in Switzerland but we didn’t have a chance to taste it until after they left. Since it wasn’t a cheese we had heard of before, we took a wild guess that this French Chardonnay might pair with it. This wine is from the French Wine Tasting that we attended at BevMo so we have tasted it before but maybe it’s changed since then. (http://mferraro73.tumblr.com/post/114788359563/french-wine-tasting-at-bevmo-in-order-to) Let’s see how we did with the pairing.
After reading the Sparkling Sauvignon Blanc and Emmentaler entry, http://mferraro73.tumblr.com/post/121356608301/bodkin-blanc-de-sauvignon-blanc-and-emmentaler, maybe you wondered if Benno, our dairy farmer friend, would share some other cheese knowledge? Well you are in luck because this is the second entry featuring our Swiss friends with more Swiss cheese! Neil and I were both excited when they brought us both a young and aged Gruyere cheese so we could taste the difference. What a great idea for WineAndCheeseFriday. They knew the cheese better than us, although we have had a couple Gruyeres* in our time, so we asked what type of wine would pair well with both cheeses. It seemed a Merlot, not being too heavy or too light with a smooth taste should do the trick.
We had some friends in town from Switzerland so when I saw the Swiss flag on this cheese, it seemed like a good choice. We didn’t expect to learn so much by eating a “swiss cheese” with Swiss people. The wine is a sparking wine that we picked up on our recent trip to Lake County (http://mferraro73.tumblr.com/post/119076681308/lake-county-wine-tasting-in-order-to-celebrate) and the tasting notes for the cheese appeared to be a good pairing for the wine flavors.
Neil and I heard about and event called “Cheese Makes Me Happy Hour”, how could we resist? It is an event regularly held at the Cheese School of San Francisco on Wednesday evenings through the end of September. (http://thecheeseschool.com/products/cheese-makes-me-happy-hour) Not only do you get to enjoy a bunch of tasty cheeses but they give you a token for a glass of wine or beer and put out quite a spread of tasty offerings.
In order to celebrate Chardonnay Day today, I’ve looked through past WineAndCheeseFriday entries to find those featuring Chardonnay. All of you Chardonnay Lovers out there will be excited to see that we’ve created many entries over the past five years. After reading through them I’m excited to say that we have identified the more commonly found flavors and aromas of apple, citrus, butter, toast and some minerality in these wines. Once we started to get a little more into Chardonnay, we also identified banana, mango, vanilla, cantaloupe, caramel, creme brûlée, and apricot. It's definitely a wine that can range in flavors and aromas!