Okay…can I just say that having a wine and cheese party with the company of one of my good friends was probably the most amazing school-related thing I have ever done in my college years!! Why don’t I have wine and cheese pairings every week?! There is nothing I love more than some fancy cheese and crackers, a few glasses of wine and good company.

Where do I even begin! Like I just said, this was one of the coolest things I have done for a college class. Now that I have done one wine and cheese pairing, I want to do them all the time! Not only did I have a great time eating and experiencing the wine and cheese, I also had a really good experience with picking out and shopping for my wine and cheeses. I decided to go to Sprouts to get the cheeses before I got the wines because I wanted to base my wine choices off the cheeses I picked out. Luckily, the cheeses I picked out actually had recommendations for wine pairings on the label! This made me even more excited to try the cheeses! I probably spent a good 15 minutes circling the small cheese area of Sprouts before deciding on a double crème brie, a garlic and herb goat cheese log and an American grana parmesan. As you can see from the pictures below, for the double crème brie, the label recommended sweet white wine, Bordeaux, or Merlot. The goat cheese log label recommended to pair with Sauvignon Blanc, Chardonnay or Chenin Blanc. The American grana parmesan label recommended Chianti, Cabernet Sauvignon or Pinot Noir. I also bought three different types of crackers, a variety of olives and a bunch of grapes.

I took the wine recommendations and walked right next door to Cellar’s. I knew they would have a huge selection to choose from. When I walked into Cellar’s I went straight to the Merlot/Pinot Noir area to start. After a few minutes of browsing and still not picking anything, a kind employee asked if I needed help, to which I accepted. This was definitely the best thing I could have done! He asked what I was looking for, what kind of cheeses I was eating, why I was looking (he knew about the wine class), and he asked about my budget. I told him I wanted to stay under $10 for each bottle. Within a matter of minutes, I had three wines I had never tried before under the $10 mark and that would pair well with my cheese. He was nice, helpful and knowledgeable! I highly recommend Cellar’s in Norman, OK on Main St.

I had so much fun assembling my cheese platter and getting ready for my friend to come over. We put on a movie, cracked open our bottles and got to tasting! The bottles we ended up with were:

Frontera Merlot

Belle Ambiance Pinot Noir

Hay Maker Sauvignon Blanc

We started with the Sauvignon Blanc, which I got to be paired with goat cheese log, so we made sure to focus on that cheese while drinking this glass (even though we couldn’t help ourselves from trying the other cheeses, we were hungry!). The cheese itself was creamy, tangy yet sweet, herb-y, SO GOOD! I love almost any kind of cheese, especially goat cheese so I was very excited for it. Once I had my first few bites of goat cheese, I was ready to wash it down with some Sauv Blanc. This wine was very fruity, almost too fruity. It was right in the middle of sweet and dry, which ended up being a bit too sweet for my palette. With the goat cheese though, it was a very very good pair. I don’t feel like either the wine or the cheese overpowered the other, I think it was really well balanced. We sipped on this for a while, then were ready to move onto the next glass!

The next wine we tried was the Belle Ambiance Pinot Noir, which was to be paired with the parmesan. Again, I am a huge cheese lover, so it was no surprise that I loved this kind too! It was sharp, tangy, had great texture and so much more! After snacking for a few minutes on the parmesan, grapes and olives, I took my first sip. I was ready for something a bit drier after the Sauvignon Blanc and this was exactly what I wanted. It was my perfect balance of slightly sweet but mostly dry, and it tasted so, so good with the parmesan. I knew it was going to be a great combination because eating parmesan with grapes is one of my favorite snacks. The Pinot was smooth and acidic. It had that dry-mouth feel that I love when drinking wine. It wasn’t really fruity or floral at all, more oaky and woody in my opinion. I definitely loved this with the parmesan, so I also went to the other cheese to try with it and I loved them as well with this wine, so I think that this is a pretty versatile Pinot that goes well with many different cheeses and foods. Finally, we moved onto our third glass of wine!

The last type of wine we tried with our cheese was the Frontera Merlot, which was meant to go with the double crème brie. Brie is also one of my top favorite kinds of cheeses so I was really excited to try this combination! My first impression of the Merlot was that it was bitter. I wasn’t sure how I felt with my first sip, so I quickly went in for another sip and I liked it much more that time. I definitely did not like the Merlot as much as the Pinot I had just tried, but it was still good. Paired with the brie, it tasted amazing! Once again, not surprising! I think if anything, the brie got slightly overpowered by the Merlot because of how bitter the Merlot was and how subtle the brie was. I still enjoyed every last sip of my glass and my friend and I almost finished off all of our cheese between the two of us! Let’s just say I need to go on a diet after how much cheese I consumed….

Overall, I had such a fun time with this wine and cheese pairing! From picking out the wines and cheese, to assembling the board, to trying everything, to hanging out with a friend, I loved everything about this assignment. It is hard to believe that it was for school in the first place. I hope I can squeeze in another wine and cheese pairing this semester to blog about, but even if I don’t, I know I will be making plenty of cheese boards in my future!

Until next wine time!