When we paired the Summertime White Blend and Fiscalini Bandaged Cheddar, it was an out of the ordinary warm day in San Francisco. So warm actually, that we couldn’t even stand to sit in our apartment. We proudly present this WineAndCheeseFriday from our fire escape.
Last week Neil and I made the trek out to Point Reyes in order to visit Cowgirl Creamery (https://www.cowgirlcreamery.com). We started our day pretty early since we took the bus there, but it was only 2 different routes, so a pretty easy ride. I even had time to do some WineAndCheeseFriday work.
We’ve made you wait long enough to find out more about the tasty wines and cheeses that we purchased during our trip to Erie, PA. (http://mferraro73.tumblr.com/post/125553865268/wine-and-cheese-tastingin-pennsylvania-we) It was such a fun night with 6 of us tasting wines, cheeses, and chocolate. When we came up with this idea with Neil’s family, everyone was excited to do some pairing so we ended up with 3 wines, 3 cheeses and chocolate. We didn’t quite have a formal pairing of everything by everyone but instead we let Neil’s Aunt Kathy, Uncle Gale, Cousin Diane and her husband Brian know how to proceed with the tastings. We like to take our time with tasting and then shout out any descriptions or adjectives to describe the wines and cheeses. This made it a little tricky for me to compile all the notes as well as do my own sampling but here’s what we discovered.
Since we are celebrating International Cabernet Sauvignon Day today, I figured we should get acquainted with this popular grape!
Neil and I not only like to drink wine, but also we love to be around the grapes before they turn into wine. Whenever we get the chance, we visit vineyards. Since harvest happens late summer to early fall, we called our friend who owns a vineyard to see when harvest might begin. Well we were in luck, because it was about to start in a few days.
When I started at Winery SF, http://www.winery-sf.com, over two years ago, I was introduced to the Revolution Series of wines. This was a collection of wines with incredibly colorful labels and themes reminiscent of the flower child era in San Francisco. There were all kinds of wines, Peace Love and Happiness, Flower Child, Values, etc. Included in the collection was “Speak”, a Syrah blend with an incredibly smoky flavor, dubbed “the campfire wine.” The grapes in 2008 were heavily influenced by the forest fires in Mendocino, CA, a characteristic described as “smoke taint.” (http://www.winespectator.com/webfeature/show/id/Northern-California-Vineyards-Impacted-by-Wildfires_4228)