 Cheese, wine, and chocolate are a friendly trio. With so many delicious wine and food options, keeping it simple over the Christmas and holiday season is ideal. Cheese and wine make for a great starter, or dessert course. Chocolate and wine, especially red wines, are best friends. Aged, hard cheeses can be served along side wine and chocolate.  Cheese & Wine Pairing tips for the holidays ...and for 2019! Brie & Bubbles. Serve Brie with dry Champagne/sparkling wine. The yeast of the Champagne elevates the musty-ness of the Brie. Expand the flavors with dried Slab apricots. Try a Santa Cruz Mountain Champagne style wine...Equinox Wines (link) locally crafts some of the best sparkling wines! Pinot Noir & Bleu d’Auvergne. Sharp and creamy, blue cheese is notoriously good sprinkled over grilled steak. The tangy cheese pairs classically with a dried cranberry, walnut, spinach and bacon salad. A Pinot Noir with a bit more body elevates these foods. Go for a flavor explosion and add dates, honey, and dark chocolate. Try Morgan Winery's Pinot Noirs (link.) Chardonnay & Comte'. One of my new favorite cheeses, Comte' is produced in large wheels, up to 85-100 pounds. Enjoy hints of stone fruit, toasted nuts, and cream. Wrights Station Vineyard and Winery offers 3 local Chardonnays to choose from (link.) For Dessert: Enjoy a Late Harvest Zinfandel (dessert wine) or Port with dark chocolate. Try Storrs Winery's Late Harvest Zin (link.) Or tuck into a glass of Merlot with chocolate cake. Go for a cool weather Monterey County or Santa Cruz Mountains Merlot. Bargetto Winery's 2016 Merlot, Santa Cruz Mountains, would be spot on with the cocoa flavors (link.) Cheeses of Europe hosted a cheese and wine pairing at the WBC. Recently my lactose intolerant friend was in Portugal. Being the gracious guest she is, she ate the local cheese and was fine! But once back at home, she had difficulty with chain grocery store cheese. I find that “cleaner” foods (natural, un-mucked foods) work better for our bodies. Cheeses of Europe served cheeses that were from specific regions, aged with natural methods, and made with natural, whole ingredients. Qualities that make for an excellent product. For recipes and cheese tips, visit Cheeses of Europe.  So find a local cheese producer or look for European cheeses made with all natural ingredients. You may have success with that...and get back together with cheese! Pair with Bay Area wines and celebrate the season. -------------------------------------------------- Cheers to your Christmas season and to the love of cheese, wine, and chocolate! Shondra Savadkohi For more flavor profiles, visit my Nose & Palate page and taste away! 
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 When I take a sip of Wargin Wines I imagine I'm drinking an Old World wine that was grown in the warm Mediterranean—only these wines are from California. Wine maker Mikael Wargin has an adventurous and fearless side to his wine making. He's willing to try new varietals and new styles. All of this is done in his wine workshop housed in an industrial building in Watsonville. Enjoy wines made from grapes sourced from a small net of California growers:
 Wargin Wines are both table friendly and dinner friendly. They have heft and body to them and are more dense and chewy. They aren't the lean coastal wines often seen from the area. These wines are more fruit forward and slightly sweeter, but not sugary or jammy. The wines have panache, but so do their bottle labels. Take a look at Wargin Wines' site, under“Shop.” Browsing through the wine labels and wine descriptions is a pleasure. Each label has a clever character icon, representing the wine—from a merman, to a classical woman, to a weightlifter with a glass of wine. The appealing art is outsourced and Mikael and Denise Wargin are the wordsmiths behind the wine descriptions. ...the sculpture is by Denise.  Have a try of Wargin's:
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