Wine Dinner #2

Today my friends and I did our second wine dinner together. We wanted to go with an Italian theme, but had to change some of our plans around to get ingredients that we could find at the grocery store. For our appetizer we made fresh homemade bruschetta paired with a Pinot Grigio. For our main course we had beef and cheese ravioli with red marinara sauce paired with a Merlot. For dessert we had a light chocolate cake paired with a White Zinfandel. It was overall a fun experience!

Name: Rex-Goliath
Varietal: Pinot Grigio
Region: California
Country: Australia
Year: not specified
Price: $5.49

My Review of the Pairing: The first wine we tried was a Pinot Grigio. This wine was very much like the label described it, light and crisp. This wine was very fresh and easy to drink on its own. Definitely my favorite wine of the night. We paired this wine with fresh homemade bruschetta. The bruschetta made the wine taste a little more acidic. The pairing of wine and food was not the best together. However, the food and wine each tasted better on its own.

Name: Barefoot Merlot
Varietal: Merlot
Region: California
Country: United States
Year: not specified
Price: $5.99

My Review of the Pairing: The second wine we tried was Barefoot Merlot. This was my first time trying Merlot before and I was interested to see how it would taste. This wine smelled very heavy and dark, and had some notes of cherry to me. The label described it as having some chocolate undertones and I could definitely taste that too. This wine was surprisingly easier to drink as I thought it would be. It was a very smooth wine. We paired this wine with meat and cheese ravioli with a red marinara sauce. The ravioli helped bring out some of the berry flavors of the wine. The pairing was good but I think this ravioli would have tasted better with a lighter red wine.

Name: Canyon Road White Zinfandel
Varietal: White Zinfandel
Region: California
Country: United States
Year: 2017
Price: $8.00

My Review of the Pairing: The last wine we tried was a White Zinfandel. This wine smelled very light and crisp. It tasted sweet and almost sour, and had hints of watermelon in them. We paired this wine with chocolate cake. The chocolate cake was very light and airy, not a very dark and rich chocolate fudge cake. The chocolate cake made the wine taste a little fruitier and sweeter, however the wine and the cake did not really compliment each other.