Wine Dinner Report 1

 For the first dinner blog, I went to 622 North Restaurant and Wine Bar with my close friend who also happens to be taking the class. We both ordered a flight with four different wines and main dish with 2 sides. In the middle of the meal we also switched our main dishes to try if different flavors work better or worse with the wines of our choosing. 

The four wines that I picked were: 

1. A Red Blend Truchard 'shepherd' (carneros)'20 

2.Wild Hills Pinot Noir (oregon)'19

3. Cabernet Sauvignon greg norman (australia)'18 

4. Chardonnay mer soleil (santa lucia)'20 

The top three wines were red, and the last one was a white. In regards to my meal, I got a Tri-Bone Stake made medium with two sides: mashed potatoes and roasted vegetables. My dear friend got the duck, with something all around it. The size of flights was very significant and as a 5'2 female finishing four glasses of wine was not something I wished upon myself. Therefore, I only finished around 2, but did my best to try them all. 

The first round of sipping happened before food was served. Unfortunately, due to being highly uncultured, we started with the reds. The wine I tried first was the Pinot Noir, it had very strong tannins and felt incredibly bitter, there were some hints of woodiness and a deep aftertaste. Second wine was the blend, this one was a smoky-salty wine. It sort of tasted like a mix of a pickle and a lemon, maybe a pickled lemon would describe it best, overall a rather odd taste. Third wine was the Cabernet Sauvignon, and honestly there was nothing special about that wine, it tasted like any other Cabernet Sauvignon I've ever had, savory, bitter and sort of boring. 

The last wine (sadly) was the white Chardonnay from Santa Lucia, even after all the reds and terribly clouded pallet, the sweet and fruity flavors came through. It tasted very peachy, and had a hint of apple. However, probably due to the excessive reds beforehand, I noted that it also tasted like bath soap. 

Food was delivered before we could try all the wines, so there was a bit of indulging in the smells of nice food, but being forced to keep drinking on an empty stomach. Probably the least pleasant part of dinner. 

First food that I tried was the steak. I heard many times that red wine went well with steak, making me very curious about why that is the case. Surprisingly, the bitter, oaky Pinot Noir after steak, became sweet and even pleasant to drink. Pickled-lemon like blend, also stopped being salty and became more normal tasting. Meanwhile, the cabernet sauvignon kept it's taste and was just a nice addition to the meal. None of the reds clashed with the meal. However, drinking three reds with a steak definitely overwhelmed me, and I got full super fast. It felt like each glass was a whole meal on its own. 

The white wine didn't taste very good with the steak, it sort of made no sense, but was definitely a good refresher.  Mashed potatoes were heavy and all in all I couldn't not eat much of it before I got full, and tipsy. 

I quickly transferred to eating the vegetables and sipping on the sweeter, pleasant white Chardonnay. When it was obvious that my plate was still right around 60% full and my friend had basically finished, we switched plates. I gave the reds another bit of effort  and tried all the wines with newly put duck in front of me. Duck mostly had the same effect on the reds as the steak, however it was not as strong. Duck was cooked to "medium", which I didn't know was safe, but it did taste good. Soft gentle flavor of duck and more bitter wines did complement each other. 

After giving all the red their final taste test, I totally gave up on drinking them, as it was entirely too much for my unaged pallet. The rest of the night was spent chatting, watching my friend finish all the food, while I picked at the brussels sprouts on the duck plate and slowly worked through the white wine. 

Overall it was a pleasant experience, we spend a total of around 2 hours are the restaurant and my weekly paycheck. Next time, I'm getting only 1 wine with my meal though. Four is three too many wines for one night.