Dinner- Pairings (American)

     So this is the first time I'm switching it up with the type of blog I do.  I want to apologize in advance for the fact that I basically wrote a novel for this blog.  I tried to break it up a bit so that it's easier to take in (or skim if you have a short attention span like me haha).  At the beginning of Spring Break, I went home to Bel Air, MD for a few days.  I went with my parents to this small bistro in Bel Air called "Pairings" where the menus have wine suggestions to go with each meal.  This leads me to my first side note... the "theme" wasn't really American.  In fact, there really wasn't a theme like there is for the dinners in Blacksburg that are designed for this class.  However, a couple of the dishes we ordered and one of the wines were American, so I just selected that as my theme for lack of a better option. 

     I would like to start by saying that this place was awesome!  It's a very small little restaurant with probably only about 8 tables, and a bar that seats 3.  We sat in a corner booth and I got the very corner seat with all of these comfy throw pillows, which was really nice.  I decided to use this blog to my advantage so that I could try not only the foods and drinks that I ordered, but I also got to sample everything my parents got too so that I could write about it!

The view from our table: that's the very small "bar."

My Meal- Sliders and Shiraz

    I ordered the "Dry Aged Deer Creek Beef Sliders with bacon, roasted garlic, caramelized shallots, and Hawk's Hill cheddar cheese."  As indicated on the menu, the suggested wine pairing was the 2009 Nugan Shiraz from South Australia.  This brings me to my second side note... we all ordered appetizers as our meals.  These appetizers were definitely big enough portions to be a meal and the prices were pretty decent.  The appetizers were around $12-15ish and the actual meals were in the $20s.  The wines were separate but were around $4 or so for a glass.  I'm really not a fan of Shiraz from what I've tasted in the past, but I decided to give it a try since it was the recommended choice. 

2009 Nugan Shiraz

   I received the Shiraz first.  The Nugan Estate describes this wine as "Deep crimson with a youthful purple hue. Complex aromas of dark chocolate, blood plum, leather and vanillin. Rich and full flavoured with a well structured palate of rhubarb compote, mocha, earth and allspice. Silky and ripe tannins complete the palate.  This wine lends itself perfectly to a variety of red meat dishes. The spicy overtones work well with asian and indian foods, as well as complimenting the more traditional flavours of roast lamb or slow cooked beef cheeks." 

   I would describe this wine as a very pure ruby red color with medium-thick legs.  It has very rich cranberry and blackberry scents with a hint of oak on the nose.  It has a sweet initial taste but then gets a little more bitter.  The aftertaste is bitter, tannic, and slightly oaky.  I actually like it a lot more than any other Shiraz I've every tried.  I didn't think that the tannic components were as overwhelming as they usually are for this type of wine, and I was surprised by how sweet it initially was.  It seemed pretty smooth as well.

    The sliders arrived a little bit later.  These were absolutely delicious!  The sliders were nice and juicy.  The bacon kind of dominated the taste, but I didn't mind that at all because bacon is one of my favorite foods.  That's not to say that the other ingredients went unnoticed though.  The caramelized shallots provided a nice sweet taste.  There was a tasty, overall "char-grilled" kind of flavor to them.  The rolls on which they were served were fresh and soft and really good.  There were also fries on the side which were very nicely seasoned with salt, pepper, and some kind of herbs.  They had a slightly garlic kind of taste.

My delicious sliders and fries (you can also see my dad's ahi tuna to the back right)

     Now for how they paired together.  I thought the sliders made the wine less sweet but brought out more berry flavor.  I definitely detected a lot of cranberry flavor when I drank the wine with the sliders.  I also thought the wine tasted less acidic and had a very full and thick texture/taste.  When I tasted the wine with just the fries, it was still a little sweeter and a little acidic.  There was less sense of the berry flavor than there was with the sliders.

My Mom's Meal- Lobster Mac & Cheese and Chardonnay

2009 Travis Chardonnay

     My mom first ordered the 2009 Travis Chardonnay from Monterey, CA.  She said she selected this one because she could pronounce it.  This is typical of my mom... my dad really enjoys describing the wines and beers he tries, but my mom usually sticks to whether it's good or bad.  Anyways, the Hand Picked Selections website describes this wine as "Ripe peach, pear, nectarine and exotic fruit aromas. Rich yet lively on the palate, with excellent natural acidity"  (http://www.handpickedselections.com/product/391-2009-Monterey+Chardonnay.htm).  My mom's description was "not quite as good as my Michelob Ultra" which I thought was pretty amusing!

    As for my description:  the Travis Chardonnay had a very nice buttery color.  It had a kind of grassy scent with apple, peach, and grapefruit on the nose.  The taste was kind of grassy and citrus-y.  It was a bit tangy, a little bitter, and slightly acidic.  For a chardonnay, it was really not oaky, which I liked about it.

    My mom then ordered the Lobster Mac & Cheese.  I didn't think I really liked lobster, but this was really yummy.  The dish was really creamy and rich which kind of seemed to make the Chardonnay more watered down, but it also made the aftertaste of the Chardonnay sweeter and tangier.

The Lobster Mac & Cheese- so good!

My Dad's Meal- Leffe Blonde, Framboise, and Ahi Tuna
     I think my dad had a good time evaluating all the drinks and pairings with me.  He grew up around it because his dad loved wine and knew a lot about it.  However, my dad didn't really want to drink wine that night, so he tried some beers instead.  I know those don't really fit in with my wine blog, but I'm going to talk about them anyways because it was fun!
  

Leffe Blonde (a.k.a. Black Olive beer as I've titled it)

     My dad started off with a Leffe Blonde which is a Belgian beer.  It had a golden, wheat color.  It tasted like a wheat beer but the aftertaste was the most interesting part.  It took me a little bit to place what the aftertaste tasted like, but once I did, that was all I could taste when I sipped the beer.  The aftertaste was definitely black olives.  It was kind of almost a salty beer.  After trying it and then sniffing it again, I could even smell black olives on the nose.  I love black olives, but it was kind of different drinking them; I'm not sure how I felt about it.

     My dad ordered the spicy, blackened ahi tuna for his meal.  It was really good.  Usually, ahi tuna scares me because it's cooked so rare, but it had great flavor, so I actually liked it.  I tried the tuna with a couple of the drinks we had at the table.  I tried a bite with my Shiraz.  It actually kind of toned down the bitter aspects of the Shiraz which was nice because I don't really like bitter wines.  When it took away the bitterness, I really liked the Shiraz even more and could focus on the sweeter and fruitier tastes.

     My dad also ordered a Framboise which had a very dark color and tasted like raspberry juice with a bit of a sparkle.  I liked it but it was almost overwhelming, like an explosion of raspberry flavor.  When I tried this with the ahi tuna, I don't think the flavor of the Framboise changed much, but the spiciness of the ahi tuna was complete chased by the raspberry.

The Framboise Lambic- both in the glass and bottle

Dessert- Port Wine

Taylor Fladgate Port 10 Year Old Tawny
http://cache.wine.com/labels/1560d.jpg

     My dad and I both had what our waitress referred to as "liquid dessert" in the form of a port wine.  Which brings me to my last side note, our waitress was  really nice and talkative and she ended up telling us that she and her husband are both hair stylists.  She gave us the information for this hair salon where her husband works and it's all based on Nick Arrojo's methods and products because the owner knows him.  If anyone is a fan of "What Not to Wear," Nick Arrojo was the hair stylist on the show in the early years.  I actually usually didn't like what he did with the people on the show's hair, but still I thought it was pretty cool she had a connection to him!
 
     Anyways, my dad and I tried the Taylor Fladgate Port 10 Year Old Tawny.  It was from Douro, Portugal and as the name would imply, it had been aged for 10 years.  This was a very deep burgundy color, very close to black.  It had very thick legs and even left some sediment at the bottom of the glass.  I have to say, I was intimidated by such a heavy wine.  You could really smell the alcohol in it... any other scents were merely undertones to the alcohol.  However, I was really surprised when I tasted the port.  Despite it's really thick texture, it had a very soft, sweet taste.  The initial taste was almost shockingly sweet, but a little heat did follow as you swallowed and continued into the aftertaste.  So I guess the alcohol that was detected in the scent could be noticed in the aftertaste as well, but I was really interested by how sweet the initial taste was for such a heavy, dark, alcoholic wine.

Overview
     So to finish up, I thought that "Pairings" was an excellent restaurant with delicious food, great service, and a quaint atmosphere.  I would definitely recommend it, and even if you don't want to try the wine suggested for your meal, the waitresses are very helpful and could help you select something else that you think you may like that would still work nicely with your meal.  They really seem to know what they're talking about, and it was some of the best food I've had in a while!  If you're ever in Bel Air, MD you should give it a try!

My mom and me enjoying our wine!

My dad and me at Pairings