Drink This Now Lesson 1

The box of wine with my almost empty glass. The picture on the wine box shows a French Chateaux. The wine itself is deep ruby red in color. Each box contains four 750ml bottles!

After a Thursday tasting at the Vintage Cellar, a box caught my eye. It was a box from the Rhone Valley in France. The box has the equivalent of around 4 bottles and with a price of around $30 is quite a steal. While it was not listed as a particular wine in the book, I decided to use it for this lesson because there was another wine listed from the region. Additionally, I was told that it would pair well with meats and cheeses, especially spicy Italian sausage.

Name: Domaine du Grand Plantier

Variety: 60% Grenache, 25% Syrah, 10% Mourvedre, 5% Carignan

Year: 2015
Region: Rhone Valley
Country: France
Winery review: Domaine du Grane Plantier reveals a lively red color. Expressive on the nose, it is sustained by a pleasant complexity of matured red fruits. Soft and round on the palate, this wine is perfectly well-balanced. Ideal with roast duck, a carpaccio or chili con carne.
My review without food: The wine was pretty spicy and oaky. There was a hint of jammy dry fruit with absolutely no sweetness at all. It was wild and overwhelming but it mellowed out the longer it was in the mouth. Pretty good for steaks and other meaty dishes.

Our set up. We've got out box of wine, Parmesan cheese, crackers, and salami. The wine paired so well with the salami!

The goal of this lesson is to understand how food and wine can complement each other. Since the person at the wine store said that the Rhone Valley wine would pair well, I'm excited to taste what flavors emerge. Since the wine itself is so spicy and pepery, I'm especially excited to see how it marries with the sausage. Below I will write out responses to each number from the lesson. My friend joined me for the lesson and we really enjoyed sharing our perception of the wine as it changed with each food.

1. The color is ruby red. It smells strong and pungent. Spicy and overwhelming. Tastes sharp and peppery. Some really dark red fruit is present as well. Heavily tannic and very dry. Perhaps even a little bitter.

2. After time and oxygenation, the wine opens up a little bit and allows more fruit. It's certainly more appealing and not as spicy. Maybe even some unripe strawberry.

3. I paired the wine with Parmesan cheese from Kroger. The wine became nutty, more oaky, and sweet mature strawberries. There's also another fattier taste that might be just the cheese. But, I think it's more than that. I just can't put my finger on the exact taste. There's more red fruit like tart cherry. Smoother and more fruity certainly but not really lighter. Super smoothy.

4. I paired the wine with peppered salami from Kroger. I predict that the spice from the meat with quell the tannins and spiciness of the wine. The sausage alone was so overwhelmingly peppery. At first, they kind of fought and it got really spicy. But then the fat calmed everything down and the pepper went away. Strawberry and other fruits really popped out but it was more earthy then sweet. It complemented the meat taste nicely and brought out the savory, smokey flavors even more. This wine is certainly meant to pair with meat and it wouldn't have nearly the same effect with asparagus or other vegetables.

5. A few hours out, the wine tasted spoiled. Sure, the peppery aromas and taste were gone, but what replaced it was not a smooth wine. The wine tasted like cheap cooking wine. Like it was well on its was to becoming straight vinegar. Bitter, off putting, and heavily oxidized. I guess it was nice that the pepper taste had calmed down. But, it would be good to find a happy medium between a dark tannic wine and an grape vinegar.