How long have you been reading WineAndCheeseFriday? Did you ever read our Pinot-Vember series of entries? Today we begin Chardon-May which will continue throughout the entire month of May. Not only will this be part of another fun set of entries but they just happen to fall within the same month as Chardonnay Day (May 24). Are you ready to learn about Chardonnay from some of the lesser known regions of the world? We’ll begin Chardon-May with the pairing of Biltmore Chardonnay and Carolina Moon, both from North Carolina. Be sure to keep checking back this month for more Chardonnay pairings.
I enjoy taking part in twitter chats especially those involving wine. If you’re looking for me after dinner, most nights of the week, that’s where you’ll find me (@winecheesefri). One day, I heard about a chat with the topic of wine travel. This definitely piqued my interest. As luck would have it, this chat was having a contest for a wine prize pack, and I won! The prize included a wine aerator, a wine vacuum, a backpack and a 3-month subscription to VineBox. Have you heard of VineBox? Its a wine club that sends out three wine samples per month to expose you to their wines before purchasing them. What a cool gift! As you may have guessed, this week's WineAndCheeseFriday entry will be about our first VineBox shipment.
On our final night in Panama, we decided to head across the street from our hotel for a wine and cheese treat. We couldn’t have predicted the feast of wine, cheeses, veggies and italian meats, that would follow. We were overdue for this type of indulgence after all our time in Central America. It just so happened that they offered fondue too so how appropriate for us to feature this dinner just days after #CheeseFondueDay.
We’ll be celebrating 5 years of WineAndCheeseFriday all month long! We’ve tasted a lot of wines along the way (see the comprehensive list in our slideshow entry) and have compiled our top 5 wines each. As you can imagine this was a task but it’s always fun to go back and reread some of this older entries! Also it’s a great way to identify those wines that we should look for again.
This was our month for Rioja; first the more traditional red and now the less available white. Wait, you didn’t know there was a white Rioja? It’s ok, I don’t think many people are aware of it. That’s why we chose to include it on WineAndCheeseFriday. It is a new wine for us, too. We only recently found out about it, so we couldn’t pass it up when we saw it in the store. The cheese is coincidentally from Spain as well. Here we are with another Spanish Wine and Cheese Pairing. Let’s see how this one goes!
We were inspired by a #WiningHourChat to give Spanish Rioja wines a try. We’ve seen them in the stores before but we’ve noticed they usually cost more than the other wines. Here in Panama, the wines are significantly less expensive than we have found in other parts of the world so it was our chance to pick up a bottle. The cheese we chose to pair with it also hails from Spain. We didn’t know much about it other than the fact that it would be harder cheese. Sounds good to us! Have you tried pairing wine and cheese by country before? Why not give it a whirl next time you are in the store?