Wine & Cheese Pairing

On January 31st a few friends of mine decided to get together and have an awesome time drinking wine and pairing said wines with cheese.  Here's what we bought, and how it went down.

We had more than enough wine to go around

First, the wines:

• 2012 Nykteri Santorini Yarris
• 2013 Bell'agio Chianti
• 2012 Apothic Red Winemaker's Blend

Here are the three cheeses we sampled:

• Mirabo (like German Brie)
• Havarti
• Parmesan

From left to right: Parmesan, Havarti, Mirabo

Before I start getting into all of the intense wine and cheese detail, I want to first say that this was a completely awesome experience. None of us really tried to pick out specific wines that would pair extraordinarily with the random cheeses we grabbed.  Our rationale was; "Hey, I like that cheese and this wine looks interesting." The result of this randomness: some really interesting and awesome pairings, and some spit out immediately rinse your mouth out with soap pairings. Anyway, now into the nitty gritty details of each wine and cheese.

The first wine of the pairing

2012 Nykeri Santorini Yarris: This white wine, from Greece I might add, gave off strong hints of pineapple with underlying oaky tones. When sampled with the Parmesan this wine lost all of its acidity and sharpness.  Things got even worse with the German Brie, the Nykeri became extremely bitter and harsh.  The worst cheese pairing for this wine by far though, was with the Havarti.  It was like a dirty diaper in my mouth.  These two in combination left a nasty pungent taste that just lingered there.

Reminds me of an imitation coconut

2013 Bell'agio Chianti:  Slightly lighter than your average red, and with an extremely odd shaped and packaged bottle to boot.  This wine reminded me of maraschino cherries, you know those really sweet bright red ones that you put in mixed drinks.  It was surprisingly dry though, and a little sour.  The finish was similar to that of a raspberry sweet tart, if such a thing existed.  On to the cheese pairing.  This wine, plus Parmesan, does not equal anything special.  The two simply do not mix, enough said.  However, with the Havarti things started to get a little more interesting.  The Chianti seemed to leave almost melt in my mouth, gooey sensation.  That was completely unexpected.  Finally, when sampled with the Brie I lost a lot of the flavor of the wine, but not in a bad way.  The wine opened up to create a softer mouthfeel and really let the taste of the Brie re-enter my palette.  After a pretty awful experience with the first wine I was not expecting a whole lot from this Chianti, but it's always nice to be pleasantly surprised.  

Gothic theme going on with this
bottle, and I like it!

2012 Apothic Red Winemaker's Blend:  Finally, the last wine of our official tasting, and the wine that I was actually expecting the least from.  This is a classic example of no taste, mass produced, red wine or so I thought.  The darkest wine of the three by far, this delightful blend from California packed a real chocolate covered fruit punch.  It was insanely chocolaty, I actually couldn't help but smile when performing the prized "sniffy sniff."  What I picked up from the nose were dark berries, and chocolate dirt.  This blend was quite easy to drink, providing a very silken finish and low tannin profile.  Things got way out of control with the cheeses, and I mean that in a good way.  I started out the pairing with Parmesan first this time.  Have I mentioned how chocolaty this wine is? This wine went from your low level candy bar chocolate to Ghiardelli chocolate, and damn that is some good chocolate if you ask me.  With the parm, it finished very buttery with strong tones of vanilla.  Things were similar with the havarti, but not quite as good.  There was also more of a berry profile that I experienced.  At this point in the tasting I was hoping that I'd saved the best for last, the Brie.  How wrong I was.  The Brie when paired with this red tasted like someone was beating me over the head with a disgusting steak.  I mean it was bad, very bad.  

I'm sampling the wine, yum

Some final things to end on

• Would I do a wine and cheese pairing again?  Absolutely, if nothing else this proved to me how versatile wine can be and made me want to drink more.
• Red wine + Parmesan = Generally good flavors
• Wine + Brie = Bad flavors, like really bad flavors
• If, and when, I conduct this experiment again I would like to try pairing a either a rose, a sparkling wine, or a desert/port/sherry.  Maybe I'll just get all of the above.
• And since I forgot to mention this earlier, my tasting notes of the cheeses we sampled
• Parmesan: Nutty, grainy, and dry
• Havarti: Earthy, sharp, and soft mouthfeel
• Brie: Buttery and very soft

And there was nothing left afterwards.  I mean nothing, not even a slice of cheese.