Cheese and Wine Pairing, Round 2!

As mentioned in an earlier post, I love snacking on cheese.  I believe I inherited my fondness for cheese from my mom who always would cut up some cheese every night before she started to prepare dinner.  After this past semester I have finally started to enjoy drinking wine, so I'm happy I have the option of doing my own pairing.  Similar to the first wine and cheese pairing I blogged about, I did not do any research going into it.  I picked three bottles of wine and three cheeses and hoped for the best.

The three wines I choose for the pairing were Pinot Grigio, Merlot, and Melbec.  The three cheeses I choose were brie, creamy havarti, and gouda.  The reason I choose brie is that I have now just recently started to like it, and I know it's a popular cheese to serve at parties.  The reason I choose the havarti was I also have recently started liking it.  I did the last pairing with havarti too, but it was a very cheap one, so I wanted to spend a little more money to see if the cheese could get even better (and trust me, it did).  I also choose a gouda, because to my understanding I don't think I ever choose to eat gouda before so I wanted to try it.  I cut slices of each cheese to try with each of the wines.  I also had water and crackers to help cleanse in-between wines.

The first wine of the night was Pinot Grigio.  The bottle was only $5 at Kroger.  Surprising the wine by itself is really good although very acidic.  I first tasted it with the brie.  I liked the combination, because the taste of the Brie cut down on the overly strong acid taste and feel to the beer.  I liked this wine even better with the creamy havarti.  I was able to detect slight fruit flavors.  The third cheese, the gouda, was not the worst pairing of the night, but it definitely was not the first.  The wine overall was bland.  

Overall I preferred the havarti the best with the Pinot Grigio and would pair again.  I would NOT pair this wine with gouda again.

The second wine of the night was the Melbec.  I did not care for the wine by itself.  I tasted smokey spicy flavors.  When tasted with the brie, nothing happened.  The wine tasted the same as it did by itself.  Because of this, I would not pair them together ever again.  The second cheese, the havarti cheese, was a good match.  It cute down on the peppery spicy taste of the wine and made it more enjoyable.  The third cheese, the gouda, was an awful combination.  The smokey flavor was enhanced after I tasted the wine. 

Similar to the Pinot Grigio, I would only pair havarti with this wine and would not pair the gouda.

The third and final wine of the night was a merlot.  I bought it, because the packaging caught my eye.  The bottle is so colorful!   The wine ended up tasting like it was watered down.  Definitely not one of the better Merlots I have had.  The first cheese of the night, the brie, did nothing to enhance the flavor of the wine.  The second cheese brought out a taste of pepper, which I did not like at all.  The first and final cheese were awesome.  

Over all, the gouda cheese was my favorite with the Merlot.