A Cheesy Six Year Anniversary..
I guess it's true what they say - time really does fly when you're having fun and in our case, time = six years! Rashad and I decided to spend our 6th year anniversary guzzling Italian wine and stuffing our chubby cheeks with both yummy and questionable cheeses. I mean.. you can't go wrong with alcohol and cheese, right?
Thanks to a cheeky Virgin Experience Days voucher, we were able to soothe our palettes at a discounted price of just £24 (for two). Not bad eh? The tasting was held at the Norfolk Plaza Hotel in Paddington and was hosted by Dionysius Importers - a company specialising in beautiful hand-picked Italian wines.
The Norfolk Plaza Hotel is about five minutes away from Piccadilly Station - which was great for me, the responsible driver ;) I would strongly suggest getting public transport or cab/taxi if you are considering wine tasting as .. well it's pretty obvious .. you will most likely end up a little fuzzy-headed by the end of it all!
After being ushered to the basement by a member of the hotel team, we were seated and served our first glass of wine whilst we waited for the session to start. We were also given a few slices of bread and each person had a little place mat with their name printed on the front. The place mats had three circles - one for your white wine, one for your red and one for your sparkling. There was also a section for you to write notes if you wanted to and a further small five circles, each named with a different wine. When the session started, our host, Claudio explained to us that the five small circles would be to rate each wine as we go through the tasting - 10 being "the best wine you have ever tasted" and 1 being the worst. Each couple was also served a little cheese platter, one cheese to accompany each wine.
Norfolk Plaza Hotel
Before the Tasting
Our host then explained to us how to properly taste wine - not by spitting it out! Huh? That's all you ever see on TV, people swirling their glasses around and spitting the contents out into a little bucket. Apparently, this was not the correct way to taste these wines..
We were taught to first sniff the wines in two ways - A) by placing the glass just below your chin and deeply smelling and B) to put the glass right under your nose and again deeply sniffing. I must say, the whiff of the first wine alone confirmed that Rashad and I would probably be stumbling hand in hand out of the hotel when the session was over... Uh-oh! After smelling the wines, we were told how to check the colour and what the different colours of the wines mean. The correct way to do this is to tilt the glass about 60 degrees and hold a white napkin (or anything white) a little distance away from the back of the glass - this is when the "true colour of the wine" will show itself against the white background. From memory, I think, the colours meant the following:
Clear/pale = usually a light body wine, dry, refreshing
Yellow/golden = usually a medium body wine, sweeter
Amber/orange/brown = usually aged, medium-thick body
Red/deep red = usually a dessert wine, sweeter, aged, thick body
First Few Drinks
My Wine Ratings
After this, we began swirling and learning about the "legs" (tears that drip down the glass when you swirl the wine and leave it to rest). Some people believe the legs help you to indicate how good the quality of the wine is, however, we were informed that this is actually a way of measuring how much alcohol is in the wine. For example, thicker and slower running legs indicate more alcohol. Then, time to taste. We tasted the wines in this order and I rated them the following:
Vento Di Mimosa - 4/10
Cataratto - 5/10
Nero Avola Merlot - 3/10
Aranghia - 1.5/10
Malvasia Dolce Passito - 8/10
Now, looking back at these ratings, some may call me a harsh critic but I had my reasons! The first two wines were white, which is what I would usually drink if I don't have the option for Rosé, particularly Zinfandel. The wines were OK, however, I usually go for a sweeter wine and less sharp/bitter. Unfortunately, these two wines were both bitter but I'm sure they would accompany a salad or light lunch pretty well. The next two wines were red. I HATE red. Although, every now and then, I will buy a half glass of red and try to ease into it, like a weaning process. For some reason, I want to like red. But at the moment, I don't. We were told that these two wines would accompany dinner - particularly a meaty dinner such as a steak. The last wine was sparkling and sweet. I could have drank that all day! I'm not sure what it accompanies it best but for me, lunch.. dinner.. dessert.. on it's own.. I don't think I would mind! :P It was like a cross between a white wine some kind of sweet, lemony, fizzy drink. Sound's odd, but it was by far the best for me.
We were then taught to taste these wines using various different techniques such as:
Allowing air to hit the wine in your mouth by making a slurping noise and parting your mouth a little - whilst it was fun to act like kids and slurp our drinks whilst trying not to dribble all over the table, it seemed a little.. ill-mannered? Or unladylike? But oh well.
Shaking the wine around at the back of the mouth near the back teeth, this apparently woke up our taste buds and really did actually make a difference to the taste of the wine
Shaking the wine around the front of the mouth - sort of in between the top lip and the top front teeth
Allowing the wine to gather in a little pool on the top of your tongue and holding it for a few seconds before mixing with one of the above techniques and swallowing
As crazy and weird as these things sounded to us, they actually really did work. Our taste buds came ALIVE. Whether that was because of a good taste or bad, it still worked.
The accompanying cheeses we tasted were:
Cheddar - everyone's favourite. We had this to accompany two different wines
A spicy Mexican cheese - which literally blew my head off but it tasted good after you got used to the initial kick
Goats cheese - not particularly my favourite
Brie - again, not my favourite but it's growing on me
Rashad Taking His Wine Crtitiquing Very Seriously
Our Little Cheese Platter
Maybe it's just because I had not eaten but that honestly was the best piece of cheddar I have ever tasted in my life! It's a shame we weren't allowed to nibble on any more :P
The experience overall was great! We learned so much more than we thought we would about different wines, how they are made, the effort that goes into making sure that they taste perfecto and how to correctly smell and taste them. Claudio was very helpful, friendly and funny, he kept things light and humoured and ensure we were not bored with all of the facts and tips. I'm pretty sure he will be seeing our faces again some day soon!
Do you guys have any more tips on great places to try out cheese and/or wine tasting in London? I'd love to do it again, maybe in a different location so hit me up with your suggestions! :)
