Dinner - Zeppolis (Various Regions)

Selection of Wines

Zeppolis has wine tastings with food on a bi-weekly basis and has now added additional wine tastings for students of geography of wine.  This was a great experience to see how different foods can alter the taste of the wine to make a meal much more enjoyable or the opposite.

Delicious food!

We started by sampling all of the great food shown above and below.  The was pizza, garlic bread, a tomato cheese pasta, italian sausage pasta, salad, crab rangoon, brie, gouda, parmesean, and crackers.  So none of us went home hungry

More food!

We had two servers taking care of us.  Unfortunately they never stood still long enough for me to get a good picture.  Combined they had lots of knowledge with wine from the taste and production.  They were even more helpful on what foods they suggested to pair with the food.  They did disagree sometimes on what pairing was the best which just shows how it depends on everyone's pallet.

We sampled a total of nine wines starting with the wines and ending with a red dessert wine.

The Wines

The wines tasted will be discussed in order:

WHITES

I first tasted the 2010 Crucero, Sauvignon Blanc, Curico Valley.  It retails for $10.95.  It had a very pale color and strong citrus smell.  It was great with the tomato pasta and salad.  It was very dry and acidic.  I finished the tasting with some brie and that really toned down the acidity of the wine.  The wine was good but not my favorite.

Picpout de Pinet 2010 Coteux Du Languedoc 

Picpout de Pinet  was the second wine of the evening.  It was very smooth and almost no heat comming through since it was 12.5% alcohol.  It had a very strong fruit small and a complex taste.  This was my first French wine and I have to admit that it was crafted very well.  It had a yellow color and was very good with the Gouda.

Manos Negras 2009 Torrontes, San Juan Argentina

Manos Negras had a brilliant golden color.  It was the strangest wine of the evening.  Not much smell on the nose and then the taste was like paint.  It was bitter, acidic, and had a very weird after taste.  I ate some cheese with it and that did not do much to change the flavors.  I would not recommend this wine.

Up until this point I had not been eating much with my wine besides cheese so I decided to refill my plate with more heavy food.

A little of everything

Sombras Del Sol Chardonnay

Sombras Del Sol is not made in the typical style chardonnay and did not have the strong buttery taste.  It had a rich golden color and apple smell.  When I tasted it there was a slight fishy taste.  I tasted with the crab rangoon which masked the fishy taste but I think I still prefere traditional chardonnays.  This was not a good wine.

REDS

Allamand Malbec 2010 Valle de Uco, Argentina

I personally prefer reds so I was happy once we finished the whites, and Italian food just lends itself to reds.  The Allamand Malbec was a great wine.  It was 100% Malbec but made from grapes collected at three different vineyards, this helped craft the wine.  The wine had a thick rich nose.  There were smells of rubber, a smoke.  The wine was a very dark red and had lots of fingers when swirled.  The taste was good, very rich and it paired very well with the Italian sausage and tomato sauce.

Crucero 2010 Carmenere Chile

The Crucero was a powerful wine out of Chile, which based on a price of $7.99.  South American wines seem to be the best deals.  This wine had some smells of earth and spices.  Again this wine was very dark but only had a few fingers relative to the previous wine.  The taste was very fully bodies and the fruit came through.  This wine was great with all of the food especially the pasta.

Maipe Cabernet Sauvignon 2010 Argentina

Once again the South American countries produce a great wine.  This wine is similar to a California wine but for a much more reasonable price of $8.99.  A dark red wine full of cherry smells with even a hint of banana.  This was one of the favorites of the wine tasting staff and I could tell why.  The wine had a great full bodied tasted that complemented all of the items on my plate, pizza, pasta, sausgage, and the crab rangoon. This is a wine worth purchasing.

Gen 5 Cabernet Sauvignon, California

This was by far the most popular wine of the evening.  Even though this was not my absolute favorite it was still an excellent wine.  It was fruity was a very strong fruit taste in the beginning ending with an acidic taste.  But after a few seconds there was a soft after taste.  It was a full bodied wine with a strong cherry taste.  I paired the wine with some cheese and the acidic taste I originally had was subdued.

DESSERT

Rinaldi Red Dream Filrato Dolce

We were served fresh cupcakes for dessert that were made with homemade icing.  The cupcakes were paired with Red Dream which was a sparkling wine and very similar to a moscato.  On the nose there was not much of a smell which seems to be common for sparkling wines.  The wine was a clear red color and had tastes of honey and sugar.  The wine finished to an empty flavor and did not have much of an after taste.  This wine could go great with most desserts.  This wine was good but I have had better dessert wines.