Steph and Mike McDowell’s Blog

January 24, 2009

We’ve been talking about doing a wine tasting party for a long time now, and we finally decided to put it together. We gathered a small group of friends to taste a variety of wine, cheese, fruit and chocolate. I also did a bunch of research about wine tasting, so that we could all learn about tasting wine without having to feel like we were wine snobs.  One of my goals was to help us start training our palate to identify the subtle tastes in wine. I got information from a number of sources, but my number one inspiration was an awesome guy named Gary Vaynerchuk of WineLibraryTV. Especially this incredible episode (it’s kinda long, but completely worth watching – Gary has a brilliant palate, and he’s hilarious!).

We had nine types of wine available for tasting at the party: Cabernet Sauvignon, Shiraz/Sirah, Zinfandel, Pinot Noir, Merlot, Riesling, Sauvignon Blanc, Pinot Grigio and  Chardonnay.

As I mentioned, we also had a number of foods available. We wanted to pair the wines with some nice cheeses and chocolate. The respective cheeses and chocolates make the wines taste better and the wine makes the cheese and chocolate taste better. Here’s how we paired them:

Camembert: Cabernet Sauvignon, Pinot Noir, Merlot, Chardonnay

Brie: Pinot Noir, Merlot, Riesling, Sauvignon Blanc

Sharp Cheddar: Cabernet Sauvignon, Merlot, Shiraz, Sauvignon Blanc

Montgomery Farmhouse Cheddar: Cabernet Sauvignon, Merlot, Shiraz, Sauvignon Blanc

Gouda Parrano: Cabernet Sauvignon, Merlot, Shiraz, Zinfandel, Chardonnay, Riesling, Pinot Grigio

Parmesan Argentine: Cabernet Sauvignon, Shiraz, Chardonnay, Sauvignon Blanc

Drunken Spanish Goat Cheese: Zinfandel, Chardonnay, Sauvignon Blanc, Pinot Grigio

Bittersweet Dark Chocolate: Cabernet Sauvignon, Zinfandel

Dark Semisweet Chocolate: Pinot Noir, Merlot

Dark Chocolate: Merlot, Shiraz

Milk Chocolate: Chardonnay, Sauvignon Blanc

To help train our palate, we made the following available (these tastes are commonly found in wines):

Pears: Chardonnay, Pinot Grigio

Mango: Pinot Grigio, Chardonnay, Sauvignon Blanc

Papaya: Pinot Grigio, Chardonnay, Sauvignon Blanc

Red Currant Jam: Cabernet Sauvignon, Merlot, Pinot Noir

Blueberry Jam: Cabernet Sauvignon, Merlot, Zinfandel, Shiraz

Blackberries: Cabernet Sauvignon, Merlot, Zinfandel, Shiraz

Green/Black Olives: Pinot Noir, Cabernet Sauvignon

Cinnamon Toast Crunch: Riesling, Pinot Grigio

Wet White Rocks (this was Vaynerchuk’s idea): Chardonnay, Riesling, Sauvignon Blanc, Pinot Grigio

Cardboard: Corked Wine (yuck!)  

We all had a blast, learned a lot, and also worked in some Rock Band 2 by the end of the night. As an added bonus, we provided some pipe cleaners to act as wine charms. Well, people had a lot of fun with their own arts and crafts time, shaping pipe cleaners. Also, we finally got to use all the fancy serving trays we got for our wedding!