Wine dinner #2

 Just last night I decided to do another wine dinner but this time with just myself! Since I couldn't find anyone from class that was available to and my roommates didn't want join me (Some Lame's if you ask me). But that didn't stop me from preparing my mom's special teriyaki chicken. First lets get to the appetizer. As you can tell I'm no fancy dude when it comes to taste in food and wine, or for that matter even presentation. Some simple garlic and onion cream cheese dip and some sun dried tomato and basil wheat thins will get the job done for me. I decided to get the Beringer Chenin Blanc ($4, alch content 11.5%), mainly because I had never had a Chenin Blanc before and the cheap price tag at Foodlion didn't hurt either. The nose on the wine immediately screamed orange and citrus, with a hint of honey or honeysuckle like a sweet springtime air. The taste was one of those wines that tastes exactly how it smells, nothing complex about it, just a simple, sweet, light, and refreshing wine. After clearing my palate with a few crackers and cheese I began to notice some hints of melon and almost like a really sweet cantaloupe, it was very interesting. The wine also had a lack of body and the heat from the alcohol seemed to linger in the aftertaste and leave your mouth with an odd taste. I found this surprising considering the relatively low alcohol content of the wine at only 11.5%. What I originally thought would be a simple wine ended up having a lot more characteristics than I had previously expected.

For the main course I had decided to do chicken instead of red meat this time just for sake of mixing things up. I hadn't prepared my mother's famous teriyaki chicken this semester yet so I figured it was long over due. Normally my mother likes to prepare the chicken with hand cut potatoes seasoned in garlic, oil, and all kinds of seasonings and throw them in the oven to create homemade wedges or cubed fries kind of. But for sake of time and my terrible cutting skills I chose the easier route in frozen french fries. After marinading I seared the chicken in a cast iron skillet for 2-3 minuets to keep the marinade juices in then you just throw it in the oven for 15-20 minutes for the chicken to finish cooking in the oven. While the chicken was cooking I began to smell and taste the wine. I remember Professor Boyer saying that Sauvignon Blanc was a great wine to pair with chicken and it was even more fitting that I decided to get the Rex-Goliath bottle ($8, alch content 12%) with the big chicken on it. The wine wasn't very heavy on the nose, I wasn't able to pick up too many descriptors at all. I got mainly just green apple with a few hints of lime, pear, and even a little kiwi. The taste was quite refreshing, it reminded me of this homemade cider that my cousin once made and he let it ferment too long or something and it was a bad batch but for some reason this wine just triggered that in my memory which was pretty cool. As I believe I have stated that Sauvinon Blanc is my favorite white wine, this one doesn't disappoint. Once I started to eat the chicken with the wine is where it started to fall off the rails a little. I think I let the chicken marinade a little too long in the teriyaki, because it seemed a little to overpowering when tasting it with the wine. I feel that a plainly prepared grilled chicken would have fit this summertime fit wine a lot better than what I had paired it with. Nonetheless I continued to finish my meal and follow it with the wine as any good learning wine drinker should.

For dessert I decided to once again keep it simple and make some chocolate chip cookies. I will disclaim that I did NOT make these cookies from scratch but rather they are from the pre-cut and shaped Pillsbury collection. Why over complicate things and possibly mess them up when the good ol' Dough boy has been pumping them out for some 100 years. When I came up with idea of doing cookies for dessert I had no clue what kind of wine would go with them. Which actually made me stumble across this cool app called "Hello Vino" which helps you pair meals with wine and vise verse. I have since recommended it to my mom and aunt as if they don't drink any kind of wine with any meal anyway. I was a little skeptical pairing a dark red wine with cookies but the internet said otherwise. As backup I had a glass of milk nearby in case the warm cookie and wine combo was too much for me to handle haha. For my wine choice I went with the Beringer Cabernet Sauvignon ($4, alch content 13%). The nose on the wine quite rich and bold, I got black cherry, and black currant, along with a hint but not much of a licorice smell. The wine on the tongue was very smooth but after swallowing it left a very powerful kick in your mouth. I think the alcohol content is perfect for this wine, the flavors of the deep black cherry and even hints of a dark chocolate covered raspberry really complement this wine. And which to my surprise went very well with the chocolate from the cookies. I never thought I would be chasing cookies with wine by the end of this course but I'll be damned if I didn't just do that, and enjoy it. While I enjoyed the cookies and wine my roommates couldn't help but seem to wander out of their rooms to the smell of delightful cookies. I decided to make an experiment out of this and made them a bargain if they tried the cookies with the wine that I would let them have some of the cookies. And to my surprise one of them actually liked it! The other was a little reluctant and refused to continue to try it after just one bite and sip. I ended up finishing off the bottle of wine with the first roommate that enjoyed it and we watched American Sniper, which I highly recommend if you have yet to see it. Pretty good way to spend a Wine Wednesday night if you ask me!