It’s not often that I even consider repeating a wine and cheese pairing but there’s a first time for everything! During our 2019 trip to Costa Rica, we found a wine that we had been keeping our eye out for quite some time, https://wineandcheesefriday.com/stemmari-nero-davola-and-monterrey-cheese/. The Stemmari brand, from Siciliy, had been featured on #wininghourchat multiple times but I had never found their brand until that trip. Then this year I was back in the same liquor store and saw bottles of Stemmari Nero d’Avola on the shelf. Why not choose a new cheese to pair with this wine that we really enjoyed? It was settled, we’d be repeating a wine on #WineAndCheeseFriday!
When we arrived in Costa Rica, we spent our first week at the beach in Puerto Viejo. The thing about the beach in Costa Rica, or anywhere, is that it’s hot! A little tricky for me to enjoy a nice glass of wine when I’m sweating so I usually seek other options. A great alternative was the box of Sangria that we found with such a fun label. Then as we continued to look in the grocery store, we came across a new brand of Costa Rican cheese. It was settled, we could still do some wine and cheese in more of a tropical way!
For this week’s Wine And Cheese Friday entry we’ll be featuring our first pairing during this trip to Costa Rica. We love visiting Costa Rica, but have found it challenging to find a wine and cheese selection that coincides with our palates. Wine can be found in local grocery and liquor stores here in Pérez Zeledón, but the selection is usually limited. Sweet wines are more popular here, whereas we prefer something drier and more complex, and most wines we find are from Chile and Argentina. Since we’ve visited three times previously, we’ve found our staple brands to enjoy on a regular basis, but are always hoping for something new and interesting. Imagine our surprise when we came across a Sicilian brand that had been previously featured on #WiningHourChat! We made a mental note and went back a week later to pick up the bottle of Stemmari Nero D’Avola.
We told you there would be more wines by Undurraga! This time we’ll taste their rosé. And this cheese, I know you can all imagine how excited we were to find an aged cheese made with goat’s milk here in Costa Rica. We came across it at the grocery store that we visit most often, Luferz. We go there every week and it wasn’t until about a month of visits that we noticed this brand of cheeses, Monte Azul in the refrigerated section. They have have over a dozen different cheeses and they refer to themselves as artisan. We all know what that means ?
Here’s another Costa Rican Wine and Cheese pairing for you to enjoy. This week's wine hails from Spain but the cheese is from here. We found the cheese in our grocery store refrigerated case and it was simply called Tico Cheese. (The phrase Tico, typically refers to a person from Costa Rica, but hey, let’s give it a try). We’ve found a few Spanish wines during our trips here and Opera Prima is another new brand for us so we picked up a bottle. Without further ado, the pairing of Opera Prima Cabernet Sauvignon and Tico cheese.
Maria and Neil started wineandcheesefriday.com to learn more about wine in 2014. We’ve visited wineries, and creameries across the world to learn as much as we can about these two wonderful delacacies. We❤️🍷&🧀
