Dinner & Wine Pairing @ Home (Asian Fusion)

Over the weekend, I went home to NoVa, and decided to do a dinner/wine pairing on early Saturday evening with my mom and aunt. The three wines we paired with our dinner were a merlot, a pinot noir, and a chambourcin.

Overview of what our dinner looked like!

Salad

2010 Chateu Ste. Michelle Merlot

The first wine we used in our pairing was the 2010 Chateu Ste. Michelle Merlot. This wine offered aromas of cherries, blackberries, and spice with layers of rich and dark red fruit flavors and a long, smooth, sweet finish. A review of this wine by Great Northwest Wine said that it is easily one of Washington's largest productions of Merlot. We paired this wine with some salad, and it was surprisingly nice. Usually, I find that salads are not so easy to pair with wines since acidic dressings and raw greens don't seem to really flatter wine, so we decided to add some black olives and a dressing with more flavor and less acid. I think it was a brilliant idea that we drank this wine with a simple salad and a much lighter dressing than what we have on our usual salads.

2012 Joseph Drouhin Laforet Pinot Noir

Pajeon

Next, we decided to pair pajeon (a traditional Korean dish consisting of green onion, shrimp, red pepper, etc) with the 2012 Joseph Drouhin Laforet Pinot Noir. This wine had aromas of raspberries, red-currants, and black-currants on the nose. After that, in the mouth, pleasant spicy notes with fresh and fruity berry flavors with light tannins. At first, we had no idea if this wine would pair well with pajeon, but it was a pleasant experience. The label was right about this wine pairing well with many different types of foods. The pajeon helped bring out the fruity/berry notes in this wine, and the wine brought the savory flavor of the pajeon to the surface. Overall, this wine and food pairing worked surprisingly well, and they helped balance each other.

Three Fox Vineyards Rosso Dolce Chambourcin

Creamy cheesy corn

Finally, the third wine we used in our pairing was the Rosso Dolce Chambourcin from Three Fox Vineyards. The wine description said that it could be paired with any sweet foods. We wanted to pair this wine with something buttery and sweet, so we paired it with some creamy cheesy corn. This wine had aromas of red berries on the nose. I think what the description meant as in "sweet foods" was something like chocolate, because this wine paired with corn was not so pleasant. However, the sweetness of the wine was very subtle and enjoyable. I think it would make a great dessert wine.

Overall, I think we had an interesting wine-pairing dinner. I enjoyed all of the wines that we tasted. I enjoyed the chambourcin the most, but not so much with its pairing. I tend to like wines with sugar residuals, so I wasn't surprised that this one was my favorite. I would drink all three of these wines again if I could, and would consider trying out different foods that they pair with as well.