DTN- Lesson 1

Drink This Now! Lesson #1

So I went to a wine store called Grape & Gourmet. They did not have any of the bottles that were listed in the chapter but the worker recommended this one to me and said it was similar so I went with it. 

When I first opened the bottle, the smell was overwhelming. It immediately made my mouth pucker up and I was honestly scared to even try it. While smelling I got scents of cherry and strawberry but after tasting it, I actually picked up a slight chocolate taste which was new to me. The color was a deep red, almost appeared black whenever it was first poured. I knew that the tannins would be really strong at this time so I was looking forward to trying the wine again in two hours to see if I could pick up on any more flavors.

2 Hours later...

After the two hours, I could tell the wine was going to be so much better just by smelling it. The intensity of the smell that made my mouth water had disappeared and instead it was just a pleasant, sweet smell. The color was still dark but it did not appear as dark as it was earlier. After tasting it, I could really pick up on the cherry flavor of the wine. It was apparent when I tasted it unlike earlier where I could only smell it. Surprisingly at this point, I still picked up a slight chocolate taste. It was honestly really cool to me to see how much the wine had actually changed in the two hours. I realized at that point how important it is to let a little oxygen get into the wine. After this, I have decided to officially buy a decanter and religiously use it to make drinking red wine that much more enjoyable.

With Asiago Cheese...

So I made the mistake of choosing the asiago cheese (which I had never had) over the mozzarella cheese because I wanted to experience something new. Sadly, the asiago cheese was absolutely disgusting for me. But seeing it was the only cheese I had in my apartment I went ahead and ate it with the wine anyways. I noticed that pairing the two together brought out intense flavors in each, which was good for the wine but not for the cheese. I also noticed that the cheese brought down the sweetness of the wine which for a red I don't think is great but for the really sweet rosés I could see the cheese being a great compliment to it.  

With three meat pizza...

So, the cheese kind of scarred me so it was really nice to switch to the pizza. However, I found that I did not really like the wine with the first bite of pizza. The first bite had pepperoni in it and I really did not like the way that they tasted together. But I kept eating it and trying it and found that I actually really liked it with the sausage on the pizza. With the pepperoni, I thought it made the wine taste pretty acidic. The wine felt really smooth still at this point but I would not say that the pizza really complimented the wine. I think I am having to get used to having two strong flavors in my mouth at once. It makes it hard for me to distinguish what flavors are coming from the wine and what flavors are coming from the food. 

The next morning...

So this morning, I was not looking forward to trying the wine again. The wine was still really dark  but the smell was now really ripe smell and smelled horrible. I honestly did not even want to try the wine but I tried it anyways to see how much it really would change. The taste of the wine was absolutely disgusting. I was honestly so surprised of how bad it actually tasted. I could not believe that the taste of the wine had changed that much just by sitting out one night. This definitely taught me that wine does go bad quick. I used to try to hang onto a bottle for 5-7 days and I now know I was just drinking bad wine. I will definitely make sure to utilize buying the half bottles when I do not have anyone to share it with because the wine is simply just not as good the next day. Granted yes, I just left it on the counter and did not cover it up or put it in the fridge but this shows how easy it is for wine to go bad when it has been in contact with too much oxygen.

What I learned...

As I mentioned earlier, this taught me about how letting the wine open up is really important for the overall composure, taste, and smell of the wine. I know that I now need to utilize a decanter when drinking red wine. I also learned how quick wine goes bad when it is in contact with too much oxygen. This will make me more aware of knowing the circumstance when buying a bottle of wine, like how much do I expect to drink and if there are other people there to help. I also learned to never eat asiago cheese because it was absolutely horrible. However, I also learned that cheese can do a lot to bring out flavors of wine that were indistinguishable before. Cheese can also tone down the sweetness of a really sweet wine.