Dinner and Food Pairing #2

I did my second and most fanciest wine dinner blog with my girlfriend and her family. We used her dad as the cook and helped him prepare the three foods with the wine. For this wine dinner, we bought one wine from a wine store, and we drank two of her dad's wine from old family gifts. These wines were supposedly expensive and have been aging for several years. Upon looking the wines up, they were actually waaay lower price than I thought - which is a good thing, because I enjoyed them a lot. We made sure to choose wines that would go along well with the foods that we were going to make. This time, we took a decent amount of photos. Pictured below: Me & my girlfriend's family!

The first food that we made was a wonderful Salmon Ceviche. My girlfriend and I went out to the grocery store to buy the necessary ingredients, including the salmon.  Then, we brought it back to the home and prepared it with her dad. Here is the finished product: 

We had the salmon ceviche along with some tostada shells. Most importantly, it was paired with the Williamsburg Winery 2017 Governor's White American Riesling. My girlfriend and I love Rieslings, as we had some in our last dinner blog, and it was the best wine that we ever tasted. This Riesling was also amazing. Riesling are generally best prepared with raw fish and foods with "green" flavors. I think the Salmon Ceviche paired with the Riesling is pretty much the ideal combo. They did not overpower each other, and complemented each other very well. The Riesling was crisp but also semi-dry. It was weird to me that the Riesling was semi-dry because I associate Rieslings with sweet wines. However, this was probably the best semi-dry wine that I've tasted because of its fruitiness and refreshing qualities. I detected peaches and apples, and it was quite acidic, which I love about Rieslings. It is definitely my favorite grape variety. The Salmon Seviche was cut into bite sized chunks and had a lot lime, cilantro and other vegetables. Overall, an amazing combo that I would definitely love to try again. Pictured below: Me with the Riesling.

For the second pairing, we had a Santa Julia (made with organic grapes) Cabernet Sauvignon 2019 from Mendoza, Argentina. We paired it with Pork Tenderloin, which her dad is an expert at creating. Cabernet Sauvignon pairs best with nearly all red meats - making pork tenderloin an excellent candidate to select for the wine dinner pairing. The Cabernet Sauvignon had a quite tough dark berry flavor, and was quite acidic. It's medium-bodied and smooth to drink. It paired excellently with the pork tenderloin, with the Cabernet being slightly overpowering, but mostly complementary. This is probably the best Cabernet Sauvignon that I've had. I tend not to like this grape variety, but this was a good Cabernet. The pork tenderloin was very juicy, soft, and had a great seasoning.

We enjoyed it along with oven-roasted broccoli with seasoning. We also decanted the wine before enjoying it.

For our third pairing, we had Jim Olsen Angel's Delight Dessert Wine 2014. We paired it with a dessert. Specifically, brownies and cookie dough ice cream.

The dessert wine tasted almost exactly the same to the port wine that I tried in my last dinner blog. Sweet, intense, rich and full-bodied. This wine pairs well with equally intensely sweet desserts, for sure. It has the ability to complement with these sweets that are also sweet and intense. It basically combines and balances everything by having a lot of big qualities, such as big sweetness, richness, high alcohol, full-bodied. Overall, this was a highly successful wine dinner with excellent quality pairings. 

Tasting - Riunite Lambrusco

Name: Riunite Lambrusco
Variety: Fruit Blends
Country of Origin: Italy
Region of Origin: Province of Mantua
Vintage Year: N/A
Price: $6
Winery Review: Soft, breezy and eminently quaffable, with a light, natural frizzante.

Wine Folly: It's a red wine, so according to page 25 of Wine Folly, that means it will be likely to have a higher acidity. It's a It's a sparkling wine, so it will last 1-3 days in the fridge with a sparkling wine stopper according to page 42 on Wine Folly.

My Review: Probably the best wine I've tasted at this price point. The Riunite Lambrusco doesn't try to be anything. It's just a light and natural taste that allows the wine to be sweet and velvety. It's sparkling aspect adds another dimension to it. It tastes of berries and is your typical fresh, fruity wine with nothing special to it - and that makes it great.

Tasting - VieVite Rosé

Name: VieVite
Variety: Rosé blend
Country of Origin: France
Region of Origin: Provence
Vintage Year: 2018
Price: $19
Winery Review: With a beautiful translucent pink hue, VieVité exudes the colors of a true Côtes de Provence rose wine. On the nose, an expression of ripe tropical fruit is balanced with a pleasant bouquet of white flowers and a discreet touch of spice. On the palate, well-structured fruit and balanced acidity creates a crisp and delicate finish.

Blend: 30% Cinsault, 30% Grenache, 30% Syrah, 10% Carignan (Average age of the vines is 25 years old)

Wine Folly: In page 48 of Wine Folly, it speaks a little about Rosé wines. The Rosé wine was probably created through maceration. For this, the red grape skins were left in the juice for a short time (about 4-12) hours. The wine is a blend, which according to wine folly, means that it is made by blending several different varietal wines together.
My Review: (I forgot to include a picture of my face with the wine.) Although this wine was supposed to have a pink hue, it seemed to be more orange to me. At least for this wine bottle specifically. The wine was fruity and quite light bodied. It smelled of flowers and was refreshing. Tasted of red fruits, and had a juicy acidity. Definitely a fan of the wine, my dad bought it for me from Costco.