Dinner - Zeppolis (Italy)

My friends and I attended the Wednesday night wine tasting dinner at Zeppolis on April 20th that had Ryan Keaton as the lecturer. They had a wide range of different wines and varietals to try and we ended up tasting thirteen different wines.

The list of wines we tasted is below:
-Social: Astica 2013 Sauvignon Blanc Argentina
-Jekel: 2014 Riesling Moneterey
-Be Bright: 2013 Pinot Grigio Napa
-Josh: 2014 Sauvignon Blanc North Coast
-Cellar 8: 2012 Chardonnay Napa
-Red Tree: 2013 Chardonnay California
-Mirassou: Pinot Nior
-Red Tree: 2013 Pinot Nior California
-Amberhill: 2012 Secret Blend California
-Crusher: 2013 Merlot Wilson Vineyard Clarksburg
-BV Coastal Estates: 2013 Zinfandel Sonoma
-William Hill: 2014 Cabernet Sauvignon Central Coast
-The Good Lot: 2012 Cabernet Sauvignon Chalk Hill Sonoma

The three I am going to talk about are three that really interested me, either good or bad, from the bunch and those are the 1) Josh 2014 Sauvignon Blanc from the North Coast, 2) Red Tree 2013 Chardonnay from California, and 3) Crusher 2013 Merlot Wilson Vineyard from Clarksburg.

The first wine that interested me was the Josh 2014 Sauvignon Blanc. The reason I chose this wine is because it had an Old World smell with tones of mold and an earthy vibe but had a more New World taste. I thought this contradiction in smell and taste was unique and something I've never tried before. When tried alone, as I said, it had an moldy smell and a soft lemongrass flavor that was amplified by the biting aftertaste it left on my palate. When tried with just bread the tannins were softened and the aftertaste wasn't as harsh. The cheese had an old affect in that it brought out more of the moldiness in the smell and some of the taste than when just tried by itself. My favorite food pairing with this wine was the lasagna. The tomato sauce really combined nicely with the Josh and gave the flavor profile a lot more depth and body.

The second wine was the Red Tree 2013 Chardonnay and the reason I chose this wine was because it was my favorite of the night and had a really high rating from the other wine tasters around us. The nose of this wine reminded me of a fruit orchard. It smelled heavily of pears and fresh apples. The nose is what made me first like this wine because of the sweetness of the fruit and like any typical beginning wine taster, I tend to like the sweeter wines more than the dry reds. Anyway, the taste of this wine alone brought more citrus flavors than sweet fruit and had a mild body with a refreshing light feeling of weak acid on my palate. With cheese, this wine was not as good because the cheese had a strong yeast/mold flavor and it did not compliment well with the citrus and fruit from this wine. With the potatoes this wine took on a more full bodied wine and I felt the acid more with the neutral food pairing. And finally with the frittata, this wine was enhanced with more an almost natural floral taste that reminded me of roses and this was surprising because it came out of nowhere for me.

The final wine I will talk about in this blog was my least favorite wine and that was the Crusher 2013 Merlot from Wilson Vineyard in Clarksburg. The reason I didn't like this wine is not a complex one. The smell immediately pur me off with a burnt rubber nose coming through with an almost gag worthy smell of smoked meat. The taste wasn't much better. Alone, the Crusher Merlot tasted like a combination of dried plums and plastic. It left a strong dry tannic aftertaste that burned the plastic, fake taste into the back of my throat and no matte what I ate I couldn't seem to get rid of it until the next wine came along. With bread this wine's taste didn't change a bit and still had that overpowering plastic taste with old fruit. With the potatoes this wine was softened, if only slightly, and didn't seem to last as long in the back of my mouth as it did by itself. And with the mac and cheese this wine lasted only a few second before being drowned out by the delicious cheese and garlic taste of the pasta for which I was thankful.

These three wines were the most interesting to me from the group of thirteen we tried last night and I think for good reason. Trying new wines is not always a treat for my palate but I am definitely learning a lot and I like the idea of pairing them with different foods to see how the tastes and smells change when combined with different ingredients. Below is a picture of the wines and some of the food I sampled last night at Zeppolis.