Festival of Cheese

I decided to go to the cheese festival after all and it was AMAZING! I went with 2 friends and we were all super pumped to see what 1000+ cheeses would look like displayed in the Hilton ballroom and we were in pure shock at the outcome. First of all, everything was beautifully displayed on silver platters in sections arranged by type of cheese. There were all kinds of fruit, crackers, and breads on the tables as well to compliment the cheeses. Each cheese winner also had a ribbon nearby to alert you to the really good ones.

My goal for the night was to try 100 cheeses, so I tried to watch what I ate and drank. I skipped all the bread, fruit, and only used small bits of crackers when necessary, so that I could try as many cheeses as possible. At first we went crazy, trying anything and everything that looked delicious, but soon found out that was a bad idea. After about an hour (and 50 or so cheeses) we were full and lethargic. Oops. So we took a break and sipped some of the complimentary wine they had there. I chose an ice wine and actually liked it a lot! The crisp sweetness paired really well with all the crazy rich and salty cheeses. Then we got to trying some more, and I tried to be more selective this time to save room. I tried to take pictures of some of my favorites:

This cheese wasnt something I had heard of but it was so delicious and creamy and had a blackberry puree in the center that mixed with it.

There were seriously sooo many goudas and it was cool to taste a few side by side.

I really liked this 10 yr aged cheddar, but it got mixed reviews among my friends. There were actually 4 whole tables just of cheddar so it was impossible to taste even a good sampling of them all.

This was just one of the tables filled with cheddar.

This was the WORST cheese of the night! It claimed to be chocolate cheddar, so of course I had to check it out and it ended up being DISGUSTING! It didn't taste like chocolate at all and instead was way way way too strong and almost bitter.

I didn't have an absolute favorite cheese of the night, but rather a favorite table. That would be the collection of soft goat cheeses. There were just plain goat cheeses in logs, soft cheese spreads, and spreads mixed with other flavors and all, ALL were incredible. Its the only time I actually ate a cheese twice. Tomorrow there is a cheese market where you can buy any of the cheeses from tonight and if I got a thing or two it would be a soft goat cheese. Here are some pictures:

Actually it was the goat cheeses that got me to my goal of 100 cheeses! I saw some of them the first time around, but I only had about 80 cheeses with 15 mins to go and I spotted a whole new table of them! So I ended up trying 100 unique cheeses tonight! Id say about 80 - 90% were delicious, with a few being meh (unpasteurized goat cheese... who knew?) and only a few being downright terrible (Im talking you, chocolate cheddar!)

A final cool thing about the night was that there was a blue ribbon table where all the best cheeses were displayed.

And here was the best in show cheese ... drum roll...

I tasted this blue cheese and it was pretty good, but Im not personally a big blue lover so Im not the best judge. Apparently the festival people thought it was pretty amazing though!

Anyway, overall the festival was just amazing, amazing, amazing and I probably gained a few pounds but this is probably the only time I will get to go to something like this. I am very happy I decided to go, and yes it was worth the $75. Hooray!

Barefoot Moscato

After writing about and drinking that Gallo White Zinfandel, I had a craving to try my old stand-by, Barefoot wines. It really has probably been a couple of years since I have had one, and since I used to like them so much they deserve a second chance. One time I went to the store when they were on sale and got like one of every flavor to try haha, so I was pretty familiar with all of them.

EXCEPT the moscato! I went to HEB and looked around for one to try and saw they have a new one out! Also, moscatos and muscat canellis are becoming one of my new favorite wines since the Austin Wine Festival, so of course I had to get this one. I even got a chance to try out my new wine glasses! I went to a GoodWill recently to look for The Sims 3 (found it for a dollar!!!) and saw a matching set of 4 colored champagne flutes which were miraculously not broken.

The bottle says this wine has hints of peach, apricot, lemon, and orange and thats a pretty accurate description. It especially tastes like peach and lemon to me and smells AMAZING! It smells sweet and floral, maybe like a honeysuckle? Not sure about that, but either way its delicious. Its also a very light wine, coming in at 9% alcohol. Overall Id say this is a delicious, light summery wine that I would definitely get again. What's even better is that its still only $5.99!

One more thing... the Austin Cheese Society is coming into town on Saturday for their annual Cheese Festival and I WANT TO GO! This is a once a year festival that moves around the country every year and may not ever come to Austin again, so its really a once in a lifetime chance. There will be 1000+ cheeses from all over the country along with snacks and wine and you get to meet the cheesemakers as well! Its held at the Hilton hotel downtown, so its sure to be a fancy affair. The only thing possibly holding me back is the pricetag of $75 a ticket. Still, its a once in a lifetime chance and Im strongly considering going.

Gallo White Zinfandel

Even wine connoisseurs (in training) need a day off and sometimes you have to go back to basics. When I first started drinking wine years ago, my favorite thing was white zinfandel. It was light, fruity, and totally accessible. It was also super cheap and abundant. My old favorite was Barefoot White Zinfandel, which broke the bank at a cool $4.99.

Anyway, I recently got a 4 pack of Gallo White Zinfandels recently! The great thing about the 4 packs is that you don't have to open a whole bottle of wine and risk it going bad before you can drink it all. Its great for when you just want a little bit of something. For this reason I used to get these fairly frequently a few years ago.

Its been a while, but it was time to taste them again. This wine is bright pink and tastes like a sweet strawberry. Its as simple as that - tastes like a strawberry. But a delicious strawberry! This wine is also very light (9% alcohol) and can easily be drunk on its own - Im not sure what it would pair with. Its delicious, simple, and convenient. I wouldn't want this for special occasions or all the time, but it was a nice treat! Im also wondering if it would be good mixed with other things, since its so sweet and cheap. Perhaps throw in a shot of vodka? Sangria? Mix into a cocktail? I might be exploring some options! :o

Specs Wine Tasting

This Wednesday was the monthly Specs wine tasting so I set off with high hopes. One thing I noticed right away was that it was incredibly busy inside. Let me just take a moment to explain how the wine tasting is set up.

There are 10 barrels places around the store... in the aisles and in the corners usually... and there are 2 wines at each barrel. Usually the 2 wines are related in some way usually being from the same winery. There are a few employees at each barrel to punch your tasting sheet (so you cant come back and re-taste) and pour you some wine. Usually they are very chatty and love to tell you about the wines and get your opinions. HOWEVER, when the store is overcrowded, it messes up the flow of the whole tasting. I had to pretty much stand in a line at each barrel to get a taste, and the employees were very rushed and not as interested in talking. The crowds made it hard to move around the store, and a few times I was poured a taste of something with no explanation of what it was. To be honest thats my favorite part of the Specs tastings - learning about the wines.

So I was a bit disappointed but still, its free delicious wine so I cant complain. As I went around the barrels trying wine I realized something else weird though - I wasnt really loving any of it. I write a rating next to each wine I try, an X, a dash for meh, a check or a check plus. At the end of the night there were no check pluses, and only a few checks. Hmmm... usually I love about 5 or 6 wines and have trouble choosing which ones to buy at the end. This time I bought NO wine, which is a first. There just was nothing that wowed me, and everything was very average.

Which prompts me to wonder - how do they choose the wine for the tastings? Is there a theme among the 20 wines? Or are these the wines in the store that haven't been selling very well because they are less well known? (I usually cant recognize 90% of the wines at the tasting) Or are they wines that Specs gets paid to promote? I would like to find this out.

In the end, I just bought one cheese - which was one they weren't even sampling. Its just a plain soft goat cheese that I thought would be delicious on salads. Im trying to recreate that warm goat cheese salad I had on my birthday. So it turned out to be an interesting specs tasting as always, but not terribly productive.

No post doesn't mean no wine!

Whoops, so I haven't been keeping up with things here on the blog but I have definitely still been drinking wine and eating cheese! Here is a recap of the last few weeks:

My Birthday!!!

On July 15th I turned 25 and of course did the obligatory "where did all the time go?? whoa!!!" nonsense. In reality it has been a great year and I feel like 25 is a good round number and will be even better than 24. For my birthday, I went out to Eddie V's which I LOVE. The only thing I really wanted was this amazing, amazing salad and a glass of wine. Seriously this salad is the best I've ever had. Its just arugula, sauteed mushrooms and onions, warm goat cheese and a vinaigrette dressing. Oh. My. God. So good! I usually don't like to get wine in restaurants because it is SO much more expensive that getting it at a store. The price of a glass is about the price you'd pay for a bottle. But since it was my birthday and I was in a nice place I indulged. The cool thing about getting wine at restaurants though is you can ask for a recommendation and usually try a few until you find one you like. So thats what I did, I ended up choosing the Pine Ridge Chenin Blanc/Viognier blend. Since its been a few weeks I don't remember too much about it except that it was DELICIOUS, and I promptly went to Specs and bought a whole bottle a few days later. A glass at Eddie V's was $10.50... guess how much the bottle was... $11. Yep. I will be trying my bottle again soon.

Third Wino Divino meeting-

As always this was a fantastic meeting. I so love getting together with friends and trying many different wines all at once. I really get a chance to compare and broaden my horizons and try things I usually wouldn't. The theme this month was to bring a wine from a place you have never been, yet would like to go. So we had a large variety of wines from Spain, France, Italy, Argentina, and of course California. ALL the wines were just fantastic. I brought a tempranillo from Spain that I was very impressed with, and I wish I had my notes from the night to describe some of the other ones. One of the shockers of the nights was a California Chardonnay that we were all like "whoa! this is great!" and it was only $4... thats what I like to see! In addition, there were tons of cheese and crackers, fruit, and hilarious games. A good time was had by all, and I can't wait until the next meeting!

Cresta Azul "needle wine"-

Also I tried the needle wine I bought from a Specs tasting. I believe its actually a white blend but the bottle was vague about what it really is. Its called a needle wine because it feels slightly carbonated (although Im not sure it is) and the bubbles feel like slight needles on your tongue. I loved it at the Specs tasting because it was so different, and when I tried it again at home I was equally impressed. It tastes like a straight up cream soda... exactly. Its a tad sour, but the carbonation and vanilla and cream hints make you feel like you have a cream soda wine. It was delicious and refreshing, something I would like to drink on the patio on a hot day. However, it definitely has to be ice cold. As it warms up its like... a warm soda... kind of gross.

Messina Hof Muscat Canelli

When I went to Specs to get the truffle cheese I got this wine mostly on a whim. I have been pretty impressed by the Messina Hof wines I have tasted lately. Also my favorite wine from the Austin wine festival was a muscat canelli, so I thought I should give this one a try.

Aside from the Fall Creek Muscat Canelli, I have also tried the Becker Muscat Canelli Amabile - both of which were deliciously sweet. So thats what I expected from this wine but much to my dismay I was a bit disappointed. This wine was really not sweet at all, and was more citrusy than anything. It tasted exactly like a grapefruit with a hint of lemon - which reminded me of a previous wine I had about a week ago - the Messina Hof Pinot Grigio! Seriously they tasted almost like the same wine! One interesting thing about this wine was the smell. It smelled like a white port - sweet and very alcoholic and almost exactly like a white port I have had.

Overall this wine was ok, I gave it a 6.5 out of 10. It was nothing special but it wasnt terrible either.

Gouda with Truffles

Whenever I express my opinions on dogs as anything less than "OMG HOW CUUUUUUUTE DOGS ARE THE BEST", I get looked at like I just chewed up some adorable puppies. I have my reasons. Like take a few days ago for instance. I had tried this super amazing cheese at Specs that just blew me away, but decided not to get it right away. After thinking about it for a few weeks, I went back and got the $35/lb gouda with truffles. This cheese is the BEST. I brought it over for an after dinner treat so that everyone could try it and bask in its amazingness. A few minutes after putting it on the counter, it mysteriously had disappeared! Nobody knew where it was! Seriously cheeses don't just up and walk off do they? Or DO they... finally we found the missing cheese in the MOUTH OF A DOG!!! Apparently, the cheese (maybe) had (somehow) fallen to the floor, and stealthily the dog scooped it up and silently went away to eat it. UGH! Luckily only a corner was nibbled off and it was still wrapped in plastic so most of it was salvageable, but I'd say it took away from the charm.

Anyway, the cheese was awesome as always. It is soooo creamy and had a pretty mild flavor. There is just a small amount of truffles in there, but they add an earthiness and make the cheese a little more robust. In the future, I think this cheese would pair really well with a pinot noir. I think everyone liked it and I will definitely get it again, although I don't know when since there are so many delicious cheeses out there.