The plan was set long before we arrived in Erie, PA to go wine tasting with Neil’s cousin Diane and her husband Brian. They love wine tasting (and drinking) all those local grapes and could hardly wait to take us out in their neck of the woods. When we started looking into which wineries to visit I was pretty surprised how many of the local wines we had already tried (https://wineandcheesefriday.com/wine-and-cheese-tasting-at-aunt-kathys-house/). The main driving force for this tasting trip was to go find the new local cheese shop, Reverie Creamery and Market. Once I found where they were located along the Lake Erie Wine Trail we made our winery choices. Although we had four hours, we only made it to Reverie, 21 Brix and Noble Winery. That’s how it usually goes for us ?!
During our first few days in Erie, PA we found this wine slushy mix at a festival. We figured this would be a nice summer treat to enjoy so we picked up a packet of the Caribbean Cooler flavor by Country Road Cupboard, https://www.countryroadcupboard.com. They were quick to mention that you can order these packets online with free shipping. You can try one of these too!
This weeks wine choice was inspired by a recent twitter chat about Hungarian wine. Since I had heard of Tokaji but never tried it, Mark at West Palm Wines suggested we taste this dry Tokaji called The Oddity. How could I resist? And speaking of oddities, we found this Potato Chip Gouda at Cheese Please. Although it sounds quite strange, it’s one of their best sellers and it's a type of Gouda. What an obvious choice for us! I suppose we were playing off the “out of the ordinary” theme for this entry because we took our tasting notes at 1am on the last night in our house. Now that’s a great reason to have Wine And Cheese!
As we prepare for National Rosé Day this weekend, we brought back a wine we’ve already tried before. When we initially found this wine at West Palm Wines, the salesman suggested we pair it with Idiazabal cheese but we weren’t able to find it that time around. (https://wineandcheesefriday.com/petit-verdot-rose-and-manchego/) Then when we were just at Cheese Please, we found the Idiazabal and the same Petit Verdot rosé. So here’s take 2 of the rosé, this time paired with Idiazabal. #RoseAllDay
We chose this weeks WineAndCheeseFriday wine by a recommendation from Li at The Wining Hour. I asked her one day during #WiningHourChat on Twitter, “What Italian wine I should try?" and she suggested Gavi. I was so excited to find it during my last trip to Trader Joe’s. She told me it was a dry white wine that she liked but I didn’t really remember much else, so it kind of left our cheese options open.
Have you ever had a cheese with fruit inside of it or maybe one that was coated in black pepper…