I think we can all agree that things have been different during Coronavirus. Maybe not for everyone but for those of us staying home to stay safe. What does that mean for wine and cheese pairing? Well, we’re not running out to pick up a cheese we just heard about since we have to carefully plan our trips to the grocery store. Also we’re rationing our wine so that we can still have some next week before we go back out to the store.
And regarding social media? In the beginning, I couldn’t find many people talking wine, mainly just the newly brewing pandemic. Now that we’re three months in, I figured I’d create an entry with how our wine and cheese pairings have changed.
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!
Being the Wine Fan that I am, people sometimes send me listings for wine events. The Wine Feed, a new wine shop in Durham, puts on a weekly #WineWednesday Free tasting, so how could I resist checking it out. When we arrived we found out the theme for the week was “Italian Wines” and it was being sponsored by a local distributor of wines from Italy. We happily joined in to taste the three wines available that evening.
I was on Social Media recently when someone said “Maria, we’d guess that you have some cool chip and dip pairings with wine.” Surprisingly I didn’t so when I saw this cheese at the Durham Farmer’s Market, my gears started turning. What if we used this soft-ripened cheese, that is essentially a dip, with some multigrain chips and turned them into bruschetta? And since bruschetta is Italian, we could see what kind of Italian wine we could find to pair with it. Not quite chips and dip in the traditional sense but we are far from traditional people. We present to you, our version of chips and dip featuring a Super Tuscan Wine, Cottonbell Cheese (by Boxcarr Handmade Cheese) and Italian Tomatoes.
Today is Grilled Cheese Day so I searched online for the best place in Durham, NC to get a grilled cheese. Once I confirmed that we could turn them into gluten free treats, we chose Toast Paninoteca.
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.
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❤️🍷&🧀
