Tasting - Josh Sauvignon Blanc

Name: Josh Sauvignon Blanc

Variety: 100% Sauvignon Blanc

Region: California

Country: United States

Year: 2022

Price: $14

Winery Review: "California- A deliciously refreshing Sauvignon Blanc offering bright citrus and tropical fruit, with hints of dried herbs and a crisp, juicy finish. Pairs well with grilled fish."-totalwine.com

Wine Folly: pg 165- I think this was a little different from how they described it in the book for me. They mention goose berry, passion fruit, and honey dew but I don't think this wine really had any sweet fruity components to it. I mainly got a citrus crispy vibe from this wine.

My Review: I think although a little drab this wine was pretty good. After seeing Josh being mentioned in the lecture videos we wanted to try it. I really liked the smell of this wine since it smelled like a clean citrus fruit. When I drank it I could feel the acidic feeling on the bottom of my tongue when I swished it which was interesting. It didn't have a citrus taste like I thought it would but I still liked it. I think after reading the wine folly maybe this was a grape fruit taste but I haven't had a grape fruit recently enough to remember what it taste like.

Tasting - Menage a Trois Merlot

 

Name: Menage a Trois Merlot
Variety: 100% Merlot

Region: California

Country: United States

Year: 2018

Price: $10

Winery Review: "Lavish is a luxurious, over the top expression of Merlot, offering a truly sensual experience. From its deep ruby red color and its alluring blueberry cordial fragrance, Lavish promises to be much more than a typical Merlot. On the palate, ripe blueberries and juicy black plums flirt recklessly with dark cocoa and vanilla notes before being swept up in a chocolaty finish. The winemakers chose grapes from California’s Central and North Coast appellations, known for producing grapes with rich flavors and aromas. The wine is fermented on French and American oak to round out the flavors and mouthfeel." - wine.com

Wine Folly: pg 131- This is one of the first times I can say that I agree completely with almost everything listed on the page wit slight differences only. I strongly felt the black cherry flavor but I wasn't able to place it as cherry, just as a darker berry taste. I also got the plum like feeling it talks about. I didn't notice the vanilla flavor that the online review talks about but I can see what they mean by a slight chocolate finish.

My Review: I loved this wine. Since I couldn't place the smell on its own I got a very dark berry/fruit smell. It was a very thick wine too but it went down super easy which seemed illogical to me with ow thick it was. There a very slight tannic feeling but that was only when I swished the wine around but I barely got the tannic component when I drank it normally. The taste was exactly how I described in the wine folly section. Definitely one of my favorites. In the future I want to try this wine again with something like pasta since that is supposedly a good pairing.

Tasting - Bay Bridge Strawberry Moscato

 

Name: Bay Bridge Strawberry Moscato

Variety: Moscato with a little bit of Merlot

Region: California

Country: United States

Year: No Year Listed

Price: $3.49

Winery Review: "At Bay Bridge Vineyards, we carefully select grapes from some of the finest vineyards to craft wines with vibrant fruit and elegant structure. Bay Bridge wines are full of flavor, rich in color and smooth in taste, which makes them delicious and the perfect accompaniment to any meal. Bay Bridge Strawberry Moscato is deliciously sweet, full of flavor, and smooth in taste. Enjoy aromas of juicy ripe strawberries that lead to a sweet finish which makes this wine the perfect complement to any occasion."- memphis

Wine Folly: The book never really talks about pink Moscato, only Moscato Blanc. The flavors that are meant to describe Moscato Blanc were nothing like what the one I drank was. I think the one I drank had strawberry additives which strongly changed the taste.

My Review: This smelled and tasted exactly how you would think. We tried to get a really cheap wine as a comparison to the normal wines we've gotten in the past. It tasted like the fake strawberry syrup you'd find on ice creams. This gave me juice vibes with no alcohol whatsoever. It was a very thin body with no tannic or bitter feelings.

Tasing - Novinophobia Chardonnay

 

Name: Novinophobia Chardonnay

Variety: 100% Chardonnay

Region: California

Country: United States

Year: 2021

Price: $12

Winery Review: "The fear of running out of wine! Rich texture with medium body displaying hints of toast, vanilla, and lush tropical fruit flavors."-mandrliquors

Wine Folly: pg 179- I can definitely understand the pineapple and maybe the vanilla but not as much as the fruity pineapple taste. In the past I had a buttery chardonnay 

My Review: My first initial thought was that this was a very pineapple smell. This was a very dry wine. I'm not sure how to describe the feeling that I felt when I drank this but it was almost like a spongy feeling in my throat. It was very thin and with no tannins and not that much bitterness.

Tasting - Castello Del Poggio Italia Sweet Rose

 

Name: Castello Del Poggio Italia Sweet Rose

Variety: Blend of Moscato and Raboso

Region: Veneto

Country: Italy

Year: Bottle doesn't specify a year

Price: $14

Winery Review: "Perfectly ripe grapes highlight the bright fruit expression of this delightful Sweet Rosé, cherished for its notes of apricot, white peach, and pomegranate that lead to a fresh and crisp effervescent finish."

Wine Folly: Wine folly doesn't really talk about this type of rose wine where it uses moscato and raboso wine but it does talk about the region Veneto briefly. It only really talks about how it's known for white wines though so it wasn't really applicable to this wine.

My Review: This wine smelled strongly like peaches but my friends all said they smelled lychee. I really like the smell of this wine since it felt like I was smelling a soda almost. Like a soda it was also extremely bubbly. Compared to past drinks this was very sweet. I mainly tasted peach like I smelled but I think it was hard to get a feel for the taste since I was very distracted by the bubbliness.

Tasting - La Cana Albarino

 

Name: La Cana Albarino

Variety: 100% albarino

Region: Rias Baixas

Country: Spain

Year: 2021

Price: 20

Winery Review: The 2021 La Caña is slightly fresher, with gorgeous citrus, tangerine, and lychee fruit as well as a medium-bodied, very pure, clean, vibrant style on the palate. It's another impeccably made, clean, crisp, juicy white that's going to shine with just about any food out there. - Jeb Dunnuck Wine.com

Wine Folly: pg. 74 - I agree that this is a high acidity low tannins wine for sure. I also didn't get a strong sweetness from it with a higher citrus taste.

My Review: Before even smelling this wine, the only though I had was that it looked very viscous/thick. It smelled like pineapples but the people I tried it with said they smelled a more petroleum like smell which I didn't get. It tasted like I was drinking a watered down syrup. It was a little citrus like but for the most part I didn't notice any unique flavors. I was really hungry when I drank this wine so I tried drinking it with a toasted coconut donut from Carol Lees. This made the wine taste super bitter which I was not a fan of. It did however make the donut taste sweeter and added a little bit of a zest taste to it.

Wine and Cheese Pairing #2

 My roommates and I wanted to do a wine and cheese tasting since we are all in this class. One of my roommates is from Georgia the country, and he wanted us to try a lot of different Georgian wines and unique cheeses.

We chose to pair tsolikouri qveri, a white wine, and rougette bavarian red cheese, Kisi qveri dry amber wine with merry parmigiano, and lastly ethno spaervai with a paski sir cheese. We chose to drink these starting from white wines to the red ethnosaperavi.

First pairing: Tsolikouri Qveri and Rougette Bavarian Red

This wine had a very citrus like smell that I couldn't place. It tasted like an apple cider and had a lot of minerals in it. It was very dry with a little bit of tannins. When eating it with the cheese it tasted a lot sweeter and it felt that it went smoother down my throat. The cheese on its own was very strong. I didn't really notice any difference in the cheese taste while eating it with the wine. The cheese was very fatty so I think it would've tasted better with a red wine and I remember learning that fatty wines help target tannins.

Second Pairing: Kisi Qveri Dry Amber Nine Oaks and Merry Parmigiano

This wine smelled like a sweet watermelon even though it's supposed to be a dry wine. It tasted like water with a little bit of a honey flavor to it. It was almost like what I would picture of a honey Gatorade would taste like. The parmesan alone was very sharp. When combined I tasted a little bit of a light berry taste and and felt it in the back of my throat. I don't think that these two really meshed together at all. The cheese tasted almost the exact same before and after as well as the wine tasted almost the exact same. My friends who I was with however said that they noticed a difference but I couldn't tell.

Third Pairing: Ethno saperavi and Paski Sir

This wine smelled like fresh dark berries. It was very tannic and felt it very strongly on my tongue. It tasted exactly how it smelled minus the freshness. It was a very bitter dark fruit in my opinion. It was also very thick and it felt like I could feel it move through my throat. This was my favorite wine and cheese pairing. The wine felt immediately lighter and the taste of fruit was much stronger when pairing it with the cheese. The cheese on its own was a very bold strong sharp taste with a hint of nuttiness and stayed this way even when eating it with the wine. The wine in a comparison almost tasted like black current propel water while drinking it with the cheese.

All in all, this was a very interesting experience. I didn't recognize any of the cheeses or wines ahead of time so everything was very new to me. This made it even more fun than the first wine and cheese tasting I did.

Wine Dinner #2

 For my friends 22nd birthday we went to the black hen for dinner. We had eaten here before and loved the food. Since all of us are in the wine class taught by Professor Boyer, we thought it would be fun to make the birthday dinner also a wine and dinner tasting. 

We brought one of our own bottles as a dessert wine which was a six grapes port wine and then bought two bottles of win there. The ones we bought were a pinot grigio Trattoria Busa Alla Torre Da Lele and a pinot noir Evolution.

Appetizer: Trattoria Busa Alla Torre Da Lele Pinot Grigio and Bacon Covered Oysters

Our first course was bacon covered oysters with a pinot grigio wine. The wine on its own was extremely good, I would say one of my top five wines so far. It was a very clear citrus smell that gave a sense of refreshment for some reason. This tasted almost the same as past pinot grigios I've had except it was significantly smoother. There was no acidic or tannic feeling in my mouth when I swished it around. There was a slight feeling in the back of my throat when drinking it. When I tried this with the oysters I was not a fan. The oysters texture was too slimy and ruined the feeling of the wine in my opinion. We specifically tried this since we googled good pairings for oysters but I was disappointed. I think from what we read online the wine should enhance the oysters but I don't think that happened. The wine also tasted more bitter after pairing them which I didn't like.

Main Dish: Evolution Pinot Noir and Filet Mignon

My second course was a filet mignon with Evolution pinot noir. Since we got different main dishes we tried to find a wine that paired well with everyone's different dishes. Since pinot noir is one of the most versatile food friendly wines we decided to get one. The wine on its own was interesting. It was significantly fruitier than I thought it would've been with a low tannic feeling in my mouth. I prefer white wines normally but this one was pretty good in my opinion. When I paired this with the filet mignon I had a much harder time getting the fruity flavor when drinking the wine. I think the wine was overpowered by the steak and its seasonings. However, the steak seasoning tasted way stronger while pairing it with the wines. I think the flavor of the steak was definitely brought out by the wine but the exact opposite case for the wine. 

Dessert: Six Grapes Reserve Porto and Lemon Raspberry Cheesecake

For our final course, we paired a dessert port wine with a citrus cheesecake. For all of the pairings, this one was my favorite. The six grapes porto had a very light fruity smell. The wine tasted like a thick plum and was very delicious. When pairing this together I think that drinking the wine after eating the cheesecake was significantly better than the other way around. The wine would be significantly more fruitier and the tannic feeling would be next to negligible in my mouth doing it this way. I was already a fan of the wine but when drinking it this it became my favorite wine drinking experience. 

Tasting - Robert Mondavi Buttery Chardonnay

Name: Robert Mondavi Buttery Chardonnay

Varity: 100% Chardonnay

Region: California

Country: United States

Year: 2021

Price: $14

Winery Review: "Our 2021 Buttery Chardonnay is golden straw in color and opens with decadent aromas of ripe pineapples, sweet milk tart, and créme brûlée. Creamy, rich flavors of custard pie, graham crackers, and vanilla bean, with notes of toasted oak and baking spices follow with a lingering finish." - we speak wine

Wine Folly: pg 96- "creamy, buttery, and soft textures" These are the exact descriptions I was thinking about when I drank this wine. 

My Review: When I smelled this it gave me a woody apple smell. It was a very thick taste which I think maybe had to do with the fact that it was the butter flavor. This was a very low acidic and tannic drink. I felt a slight after taste on my tongue but for the most part it went down fairly smoothly. It wasn't a super rich or creamy flavor in my opinion like it said it would be but it was still good.