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Sip & Tell Blog

...Wineries, Tasting Rooms, & More

Holiday Pairings:                                               ...cheese, wine, and chocolate

12/20/2018

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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.
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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.

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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.
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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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Wargin Wines, Soquel & Watsonville                     ...fruit forward, bite, and personality

8/24/2017

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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:
  • You can taste Pinot Gris and Gewurztraminer from Watsonville (grown near Casserly and Whiting Roads.)
  • From Tres Pinos (San Benito County) discover a Negrette, a Sangiovese, and a Barbera from one vintner.
  • A Petite Syrah from El Dorado County, and another from Calistoga round out the California tour.
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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.

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Have a try of Wargin's:
  • 2015 100% Negrette. This was the first time I've tasted this varietal. Hints of earthiness, cocoa, chocolate, and dark blueberry. It's dark, opaque and sweeter than I usually go
for, but I enjoyed trying it.
  • 2014 100% Barbera. Dark berry, dark pomegranate with a good tart to sweet balance. Pleasing earthy/musty hints on the nose.
  • 2014 100% Sangiovese. Soft smokiness, peppery, tart and ending with dark cherry.
  • Mikael has made wine for Roudon Smith Winery and MJA Vineyards.
  • His Soquel tasting room offers wine tastings weekends and some weekdays as well. The Watsonville tasting room has been open for five years and offers tastings on the weekend.
If you want to try something new for Santa Cruz County but definitely
California grown, visit Wargin's wines.

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