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Dinner Pairings

This week, I went with Jessica, one of my fellow classmates, to Blu in Norman to do a full meal with paired wines. 
Our first course was a wonderful mac and cheese paired with Stemmari's Nero D'Avola. The wine tasted and smelled very plummy, although the taste also had serious earthy, spicy, and smoky flavors that really put the fruit in the background. The wine sucked almost all of the flavor out of the mac, but in turn the fruitiness became much more pronounced.




Next, we each ordered a different pizza to split and a wine to go with each. Jessica ordered The Med on a flatbread, which had an olive tapenade for the sauce, with goat cheese and pepperoncinis and a balsamic drizzle. We paired it with Jam Jar's Moscato. The moscato primarily tasted like peach and mango, although it had a very smooth cinnamon finish. When combined, the spice in the wine was cancelled out, bringing out the fruit and also enhancing the balsamic flavor of the pizza.




Finally, I ordered a pepperoni pizza with a special mole sauce and paired it with Banyan's Gewürz. The Gewürz on its own fell into the classic fault of a mediocre Gewürz, which is having too weak of a flavor. Gewürzes ought to be mild and gentle, but they should still do something. The Banyan had incredibly mild floral notes with a spiced finish, but they were completely overshadowed by the acidic mouthfeel. However, when combined with the pizza, the cinnamon in the Gewürz became much more prominent and actually became a nice accent to the pizza.





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