Tasters: Cody and Tom Noland, Candis Green
Location: Caren’s Wine and Cheese Bar, Toronto, Ontario
Wine:
A sparkling ruby red wine at the center with some bricking on the edge. A wonderfully expressive nose of rain-freshened forest floor with overtones of red fruit especially cherries. Silky smooth tannins with a bright core of tart cherry acidity on the midpalate. A long finish of red fruit and refreshing tart cherry acidity. Definitely a food wine that is drinking at peak
Cheese plate had:
Brie, Aged goat cheese, tart gherkins, strawberries, dried apricots, port jelly, spicy red pepper jelly, bread, and pate.
Wine and cheese matches:
With tart gherkins: good match as the gherkins were soo tart that they made the wine taste sweet and fruity, especially strawberries. I would have never have thought of this match myself in a million years.
With strawberries: OK match but the fruit was nicely ripe and sweet which brought out the bitter tannins a bit too much for my taste.
Brie: Best cheese match as it mellows out the acidity of the wine and makes it smoother.
Aged goat cheese: Fairly good match, the wine tries to go with this cheese but this aged cheese is a bit strong and overpowers the wine a bit. If I tasted this cheese blind I would have guessed it tasted like a young blue cheese.
Pate: OK match, but none of us really like pate, so this match was only tried once.
Apricots: Good match as the wine really intensifies the apricot fruitiness, especially on the finish.
Port jelly: A good match, but like the strawberries a bit too sweet which (according to Cody and I have to agree) enhances the bitter tannins in the wine. Proves the rule that no food should be sweeter than the wine.
Red pepper jelly: Wonderful match with the slightly hot spicy jelly bringing out bursts of fruit from the wine and smoothing it out even more. Best single food-wine match. Who would have thunk it?
Combinations:
Goat cheese with port jelly and wine: Much better match with the strength of the cheese smoothed out by the sweet port jelly and both together with the wine making a nice match with all three blending nicely together.
Best combo: Goat cheese and the red pepper jelly. These two compliment each other nicely and with the wine – ooo, la, la! What a mind-bending taste combination! This is when Cody said:
Balance matters more.
Balance is what we were after with wine, food, and food matched with wine.
Wine revealed:
1997 Ronmmee (sp?) Bourgogne by Remoissenot Pere et fils, 13% abv $55 at the wine bar. I would buy it again.
Cheese plate: $22. Good except for the pate and that was just our taste as the pate was not bad.