Family Italian Wine Dinner

Family Enjoying Dinner

The Wines

After sharing with my family all the cool stuff I was learning in geography of wine I convinced them to do a wine dinner. My grandfather is a huge wino so for our italian dinner he choose a Pino Gris a Chardonnay and a Pinot Noir. We saved the pinot noir for the main course and then had the Chardonnay and the pino grigo with appetisers. For an appetiser we had a Buffalo moterzella with mushrooms and roasted tomatoes. This appetiser paired well with the King's Estate 2011 pinot Gris, the sweetness of the Pino Gris balanced out the savory aspect of the buffalo balsamic moterella with the roasted tomatoes. The Pino gris had really nice fruit notes inclduing some citris and pear that I could easily sense. The nose was a honeysuckle with faint citrus. Great pairing.

Cheese & Wine

Lobster Salad

Mannacotti

The second course we had was a lobster salad with mircogreens and avocado with a lemon wasabi dressing. This paired really well with the Simi 2012 Sonoma Chardonnay. The freshness of the salad and the texture of the avacodo and crab was balanced nicely by the oakiness of this Chardonnay. This Chardonnay had a orange and apple smelll- the taste, however, was really okay. I didn't mind that though because it balanced out the tangy seafood of the lobster salad. For the next course we had veal/beef mannacotti and a pesto artichoke pizza  with vermont goat cheese. For this course we paired it with the Meiomi 2011 Pinot  Noir.

Goat Cheese Pizza

I was really excited for this part of dinner because Pinot Noir is the most expensive wine and my favourite (glad my parents could pay for this). The Pinot Grigo was from Santa Barbara, so like most California Pinot's it was very fruity and balanced. This went really well with the creamy goat cheese of the pizza and the heaviness of the beef/veal mixture inside of the mannacotti. The Pino Noir had a very fruity nose with raspberry and blackberry notes really coming through. The taste was awesome with more raspberry, blackberry, black cherry  vanilla with a hint of spice at the end. This complex wine was an awesome pairing for both the mannicotti and the goat cheese pizza.

Granny Getting Crunk

By far the best part of this dinner was being able to share with my family all that I have learned in this class. Once we started talking about wine I found out alot more about my grandparents and parents experiences with wine. My dad went to talk about his trips to Nappa Valley and filled me in on all the things he tried and learned while in California. I also think I found a new staple- The King's Estate Pinot Gris is one I will drink frequently :) I guess apples don't fall far from the tree- considering I have very similar tastes as my family.

Mom & Dad