During a WiningHourChat in the beginning of the year, a suggestion was made to have a Wine and Cheese Theme on a future Tuesday night. So immediately after the chat ended, I contacted the hostesses to figure out what time of the year would be good for all of us. We decided to hold it on National Cheese Day in June. This got the ideas flowing in my mind. What would we talk about? What wines and cheeses should we taste? What would my role as guest be? The hostesses will tell you that this spurred a bunch of ideas and messages from me in the coming days.
When we came up with the idea for Chardon-May, I wanted to find wines from less common growing areas than most people are familiar with for Chardonnay. We have enjoyed Chardonnay on many occasions and it is a wine that can range in flavor quite a bit. I was also curious how many of them would be lighter and fruitier than the heavily oaked versions we knew from California.
During a set of recent Instagram posts, I found out that Neil and I have tried quite a few Languedoc wines. This came as a bit to a surprise to me. We know that we always enjoy trying new wines but who knew that we’d been gravitating to a specific French wine region? I’d say part of the reason we were unaware of these wines all carrying a similar trait is because Old World wines are labeled pretty differently than New World wines.
This Chardon-May entry features a Chardonnay from Argentina and a cheese from Spain. We found this wine, as well as the Australian Chardonnay from our last entry at Wine Authorities. Also similar to the previous entry, the cheese is from Whole Foods. I love cheese and they have such a terrific selection of cheeses from around the world there! In order to celebrate WineAndCheeseFriday, we brought in guest tasters, Jo and Francis, our landlords in Durham, NC. They both enjoy wine and figured they’d give wine and cheese pairing with us a try. I didn’t realize Jo is usually an AnythingButChardonnay kind of girl when we invited them up so we’ll see how it goes.
Where do Chardonnay grapes grow? Have you ever looked into it? The more popular areas are California and France, but as you know we like to explore outside the box. As we went through our previous Chardonnay entries we were really surprised to find out that we’ve mainly tasted California chardonnay. We’re taking the opportunity with Chardon-May to try some of those other regions.
This next Chardon-May entry features the Eve Chardonnay from Charles Smith Wines. Charles Smith Wines is a brand from Washington that features funky black and white label designs. We’ve tried a handful of their wines but this will be our first time with their Chardonnay. Come to think of it, this might be our first time trying a Washington Chardonnay too.* The cheese we’ll be tasting for this entry is from North Carolina, and yup, you guessed it, it’s another one from the Durham Farmer’s Market. We really lucked out with the selection of cheeses available there. We hope you enjoy the second Chardon-May pairing of Eve Chardonnay and Rocket’s Robiola.