Wine and Cheese #2 - More Cheese with Friends

 

Cheese #1 - Cream Havarti

Name of Wine: Fossa Mala Refossa 2020

Variety of Grapes: Sauvigon Blanc

Vintage Cellar Description:
"Considerable aromas and flavors of crushed sea salt and cooked apples. Full body. Really intense and flavorful. Steely."

My Review:
I tasted notes of apple in this full body creamy wine. It had a fiery burning finish that I liked much more than at the start of the semester. I'm not sure what crushed sea salt means from the Vintage Cellar description. The Havarti cheese was already creamy, and when paired with the wine, the wine and cheese both had an even creamier feel to them. The cheese also removed any of the burning sensation I originally felt. This wine went down very easily with the cheese.

Cheese #2 - Jalapeno Pepper Jack

Name of Wine: Rinaldi Moscato d'Asti

Variety of Grapes: Muscat

Vintage Cellar Description:
"Bright pale light silvery emerald color. Lively, fruity aromas and flavors of peach soda, apple sauce, and pear skin with an even crisp, spritzy moderately sweet light-to-medium body and a smooth, interesting, medium-length orange sherbet, honey apricots, and chalk finish with fine, dusty, fruit tannis and no oak. A light and lively Moscato d'Asti."

My Review:
Wow! This Moscato d'Asti was the sweetest wine I have ever had. I really liked it. I almost reminds me of an apple soda. I also enjoyed the light bubbling in the wine. I did not like this paired with the Jalapeno Pepper Jack. I think the pepper of the cheese clashed with the light bodied sweetness of the wine. The cheese flavors overpowered the wine and mode the wine taste more bitter.

Cheese #3 - Fresh Mozzarella

Name of Wine: Colutta Friuli Colli Orientali Pinot Grigio Skin Contact

Variety of Grapes: Pinot Grigio

Vintage Cellar Description:
"This Ramato (copper colored in Italian) boasts a rich, complex bouquet of crisp fruity impressions including white peach, and cantaloupe followed by blackberry and bitter cherry with an intriguing hint of wild flowers. On the palate the wine is enveloping with a pleasant acidity and long mineral finish of red fruits."

My Review:
This wine was a big change in pace from the other two wines of the evening. It was much higher in alcohol content, and I could feel it from the long finish this wine had. I tasted melon flavors in the wine with a hint of floral components. It was very dry. However, with the mozzarella the dryness was much more manageable, but the flavors of the wine were untouched from the cheese. I think mozzarella is too mild of a cheese to go with this wine. I think it would have paired better with a red pasta.