Wine Dinner Blog: Italian
For this wine dinner, I invited my friends Noah and Sara Ann to join. Neither of them are taking this class, but I definitely wasn't about to make 3 courses by myself, so I told them each to bring a dish. The 3 courses were as follows:
To start we had a burrata and arugula salad, dressed with balsamic vinaigrette, made by Noah.
Next we had the main course, a homemade baked ziti, made by yours truly with ground beef, marinara, a LOT of seasonings and cheese, and ziti noodles.
Lastly, dessert: a tiramisu cheesecake topped with coffee and regular whipped cream, homemade by Sara Ann.
Obviously we were going with an Italian theme and stuck to it as best as possible, including pairing the wines. The 3 wines we included were a Belmondo Pinot Noir, a Giulio Straccali Chianti, and a Canavese Rosso.
To start I will be talking about the Pinot Noir.
My review by itself:
Cherry and blackberry notes on the nose. Tannic with pear taste, and cherry and asian pear notes. Not sweet, not earthy at all, and slightly acidic. Light body.
Review of the wine with the foods:
The salad and the wine were decent together, the wine was relatively balanced with the creaminess of the cheese and the bread makes the wine taste less sour. The freshness of the arugula with a bit of bite complimented the wine well.
This wine accentuates the red pepper spicy flavor of the ziti and tastes
very sour with it. The flavors of the wine are very overpowered by the
food making the only flavors that come through are sour and spicy.
The wine made the coffee aftertaste by cleansed away entirely but accentuates the bold flavor of the wine while making it taste less sour.
Winner: Salad
Loser: Tiramisu
Second I will be talking about the Chianti.
My review by itself:
Smells fruity, like concentrated syrup of grapes and apple. Slightly sweet with an aftertaste of fruityness like apples, pears and asian pear. Slightly tannic, in the same way an asian pear is dry. Not earthy, but slightly acidic. Light body.
Review of the wine with the foods:
This wine was just terrible with the salad, it leaves the taste of the bread in your mouth and cancels out all of the other wonderful flavors in the salad. It cleanses the palate when you want it to be accentuating the freshness of the arugula and creaminess of the cheese, but it just tastes like bread and makes the bitterness of the arugula stand out.
With the ziti this wine tasted extremely sour and just like with the salad, cancels out all the good flavors in the food you want to be experiencing like the spiciness and meatiness of the meat and red pepper flakes. It accentuated only the sour taste and everything else drowned under that one flavor.
This wine also turned extremely sour with the tiramisu, but surprisingly also cleansed the palate of the coffee that usually has a very long aftertaste.
Winner: None. All of these recipes lost with this wine, and I strongly disliked all of the pairings
Thirdly I will be discussing the Rosso.
My review by itself:
This was a very dry wine, with a tannic starchy aftertaste. It smells a lot like hand sanitizer and slightly like pears. It was not sweet at all, and slightly acidic. Slightly earthy. Medium body.
Review of the wine with the foods:
Eating this wine with the salad accentuates the tannic dryness and hand sanitizer flavors as well as enhancing the fresh and grassy aftertaste of the arugula.
Drinking this wine with the ziti makes the flavor of the ziti itself go away almost entirely and cleanses the palate, while leaving a slight aftertaste of pear and hand sanitizer.
This wine accentuates the taste of the coffee in the tiramisu cheesecake and makes the coffee aftertaste last 15+ seconds, however it cancels out the sweetness of the tiramisu frosting altogether.
Winner: Tiramisu
Loser: Ziti
Honestly, this dinner was pretty much a disaster for me. I had a really hard day and I'm not an experienced chef, so even making this 'easy' baked ziti recipe Noah gave me was really stressful. I disliked all of the wines since I chose all reds to try and pair them with the food specifically, but that's kind of my own fault. I had a good cry with my friends, finished the assignment and vowed that the next wine dinner we do I'm buying a rotisserie chicken from Kroger and buying the fruitiest sweetest wines I can find so I can enjoy the experience a lot more next time.
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