Dinner -Homemade

On Thursday night, my boyfriend and I decided to do a wine pairing dinner with a nice summery grilled dinner paired with 3 different colored wines. I was hoping to compare the effects that a red, a white, and a blush wine had on the meal. We had pork tenderloin, corn on the cob, and loaded baked potatoes. Paired with those were 3 wines: a 2011 El Cortujillo Tempranillo, a Caparra & Siciliani Cirò white wine, and a 2012 Señorio de Sarrìa Garnacha.

 


The White Wine:
  Alone: I thought this wine had a weird mix of green apple flavor and also an oaky vanilla flavor that seemed to clash in a way. However, it was interesting on the palate and pleasant on the nose.
With the pork: This wine complimented the pork nicely but didn't enhance the flavor of either. I thought that it the apple flavors weren't as strong and the oaky-ness came out more.
With the corn: Again, this wine didn't enhance the flavor of the corn but I also didn't particularly enjoy it either. It seemed to make the wine taste more acidic.
With the potato: I thought this wine went semi-well with the potato. The basicity of the sour cream and cheese on the potato with the acidity of the green apple balanced out. But it wasn't my favorite combination.




The Rosè:
Alone: I was not a fan of this rosè. There was a weird bitterness on the palate. I think the main reason that I didn't enjoy it was because I was expecting something sweeter. It had a faint hint of strawberries on the palate and the nose.
With the pork: The bitterness of the wine with the pork was a terrible combination. It made the pork taste terrible and wine taste even worse than it already did.
With the corn: This wasn't that terrible of a combination but I didn't particularly enjoy it either. The corn was rather neutral flavored so you couldn't really go too wrong. It didn't really change the flavor of this wine.
With the potato: This was not a good combination. It wasn't awful though because the potato had such strong flavors.The chives and sour cream kind of masked the bitterness and I was able to enjoy the wine a bit more. The sweetness of the strawberries came out more.


The Red Wine:
Alone: I quite liked this wine. It had a good balance of sweetness, acidity, and tannins. I picked up on flavours of darker fruits like blackberry and black cherry.
With the pork: This was the best wine pairing with the pork. The pork leveled out the tannic component and the dark fruit flavors became more prominent. I ate most of my pork with this wine.
With the corn: I wasn't a huge fan of this combination but it wasn't awful. The corn was kind of bland so the wine didn't really do much with this dish.
With the potato: This was a pretty good combination. The potato had so many flavor components but the sour cream and cheese balanced nicely with the tannins and acidity to really please my palate.





Overall, I thought this dinner was a good learning experience. It confirmed a lot of things we had learned in class and taught me new things.

(I don't have a picture of me with the food, as I didn't realize it was a requirement for these blog posts (as the email was sent after I did the dinner pairing).)