Dinner -Homemade

On Thursday night, my boyfriend Robert and I decided to do a wine dinner pairing with Italian foods and random wines. I was hoping to find some interesting wine combinations that worked. Our meal consisted of gnocchi (aka my favorite food) in a creamy pesto sauce, a salad, and garlic bread. The wines we chose were a Syrah, a Merlot, and a Riesling.

Our meal, ready to eat!

I poured a glass of each wine and tried each dish with each wine. Below are my tasting notes for each wine and how I thought they tasted with each dish.

Crane Lake Petite Sirah

Alone
I actually really liked this wine, despite it being a cheap bottle. I think the wine had very fruit-forward flavors (like cherry, blackberry, maybe even a touch of strawberry as well).

With gnocchi
I think this wine paired nicely with the gnocchi. I think the gnocchi and the pesto sauce actually kind of enhanced the wine and I got a lot more out of it. I think it might have been the best wine (of the three) with the gnocchi.

With salad
I'll say it here and I'll say it again. You just can't pair salad and wine. It was bad. I knew it was hard to pair with but it just made the wine worse. It seemed to make the wine taste very tart and bitter.

With garlic bread
 I wasn't the hugest fan of this pairing. Garlic is such a strong and overpowering flavor that the fruitiness of this wine seemed to clash.

Omo Ze Bel Merlot

Alone
I enjoyed this wine a lot. There were subtle hints of cherry flavor, which reminded me of Cherry Coke. This Merlot had an interesting, somewhat grainy texture.

With gnocchi
I thought this wine paired well with the gnocchi. The acidity of the wine was kind of balanced out with the creaminess of the pesto sauce and the basic nature of the potatoes in the gnocchi.

With salad
This wine with salad was actually pretty terrible. I knew salad is a hard thing to pair with but this was just bad. I think that the crispness and freshness of the salad with the wine made the wine taste like poison. I couldn't do it.

With garlic bread
I wouldn't say this paired well or didn't pair well with the bread. As strong of a flavor as garlic is, I thought it would have some impact but it didn't really change the flavor of the wine to me.

Shine Riesling 

Alone
I actually really enjoyed this wine for a white. It was not a typical Riesling as it was not very fruit forward, but had a mineral component as well. While there were citrus aromas and flavors, the acidity was refreshing.

With gnocchi
I didn't expect this to be a good pairing and I was right. The citrusy flavor didn't do anything with the creaminess of the gnocchi and was not pleasing on the palate.

With salad
Probably the best pair of the three, but still not very good. I found that the crispness and freshness of the wine matched the freshness of the salad but the citrus threw everything off.

With garlic bread
I thought that this was a weird pairing. The strong garlic flavor did not go well with the citrusy Riesling. However the garlic made the wine seem more minerally and chalky.

Overall, I found the pairing was interesting and I learned a lot from doing this. I am a vegetarian so I wish I could have done the dinner with meat products to see how that would influence the wines (especially the reds).