Wine Dinner 1 - Dinner With My Parents (and brother)!

April 19, 2014 - Wine Dinner at the Brooks' Residence

Me with my parents, Michael and Bev!

Me with my brother, Graham!

I decided to go home over Easter weekend because I hadn't seen my family in a while and I wanted to visit for Easter, but mostly because I wanted to have a wine dinner with my parents and brother! I came home on Friday evening and went out to shop for wine and ingredients with my brother and sister on Saturday. On Saturday evening we all worked together to prepare the ingredients for a Balsamic Vinaigrette salad and Asian Teriyaki Chicken Stir-fry!

  

Teriyaki Chicken Stir-fry

The Teriyaki Chicken Stir-fry was cooked with sliced, boneless chicken breasts, olive oil, broccoli, shredded carrots, water chestnuts, baby corn, snow peas, sugar snap peas, sliced mushrooms, cracked peppercorn, dry ginger powder, Soy sauce, and Teriyaki sauce....mmm..mmm! The chicken was cooked first in the wok, then all the vegetables (except for the broccoli and carrots) were sauteed by themselves with Teriyaki sauce over low heat for about 25 minutes. The broccoli, carrots and chicken were then added and cooked with the vegetables for an additional 10 minutes.  We added the rest of the Teriyaki sauce, along with some Soy sauce and dry ginger at the end. The stir-fry tasted amazing, light, healthy and had a great balance of flavor; not too much Teriyaki, Soy, or ginger and not too little either! 

  

Balsamic Vinaigrette Salad

The Balsamic Vinaigrette salad included Romaine lettuce, cherry tomatoes, finely shredded sharp cheddar cheese, real bacon bits, sliced onion, shredded carrots, cracked peppercorn, and, of course, Balsamic Vinaigrette dressing all tossed together! It was very tasty, especially with the bacon bits, and it was a great appetizer for the chicken stir-fry.

Arbor Mist Pinot Grigio

To start off our meal with the first course, I decided to pair the Balsamic Vinaigrette salad with an Arbor Mist white pear flavored Pinot Grigio that my mom had purchased earlier in the week. It's a non-vintage bottle from Canandaiuga, New York. This Pinot Grigio is only a $5 bottle from the grocery store and even though it is alcoholic (6%) it doesn't seem like it's wine because it basically tastes like sweet white grape juice, maybe even a sparkling, non-alcoholic cider. It was pretty fruity and fresh on the nose and a little acidic on the palate, but no other flavors, except for the artificially flavored white pear, were present. I also served this Pinot Grigio chilled. 

My mom, dad, and brother all liked how it paired with the salad; I thought it paired decently with the salad, but not nearly as much as a higher alcohol, higher quality white wine with more complex flavors might have. As I kept tasting the salad and wine together, I realized that a sweeter raspberry vinaigrette dressing might have been better for the salad. Even though the alcohol content and quality of this wine were not what I'm used to, I was happy to see that my family members all enjoyed the experience of how it paired with the salad.      

Josef Weinberg Riesling

I had a difficult time deciding which wine varietal and style would pair nicely with the Asian Teriyaki and Soy flavors in the chicken stir-fry, but I eventually settled on a 2013 Josef Weinberg sweet Riesling from Rheinhessen, Germany. German Rieslings usually pair well with spicy Asian food because their sweetness and crispness helps to take some of the edge and heat off the spicy dish and provides a contrasting variety of flavors between the wine and Asian dish. Our stir-fry, however, was not spicy at all: no Asian hot sauce, no peppers, no spicy seasonings; just the Teriyaki and Soy sauces.  

I noticed this particular Riesling to be primarily soapy, but also a bit fruity and crisp on the nose. I smelled a bit of honeysuckle, too. It tasted light in acid, full bodied in weight, very pleasantly sweet, and nicely balanced between its alcohol (9%) and acid content. Because I served this wine chilled, some of the aromas and flavors were probably masked. My mom, dad, and brother all thought this Riesling tasted awesome and that it really brought out the complex flavors of the stir-fry, as did I!

      

Belmondo Moscato

I really wanted my parents and brother to have the amazing experience of tasting a sparkling Moscato with a sweet dessert, like I had had at another wine dinner, but I could only find a non-sparkling Moscato at the grocery store. I decided to pair this 2011 Belmondo Moscato, from Sicily, Italy, with a Sara Lee New York style cheesecake for our dessert! This Moscato has a pleasant fruity, honey, and floral nose. However, it didn't seem to be as aromatic as I had hoped because I served this wine chilled, which probably hid some of the deeper aromas and flavors. I noticed that this Moscato provided a great contrast of light acidity to the sweet cheesecake.  It also tasted sweet and fruity, but, interestingly enough, this Moscato also tasted carbonated even though it clearly is not. I'm not sure if I was projecting my own experiences with sparkling Moscato on to this Moscato or if I was just longing for the texture of carbonation, but it just felt carbonated to me. 

Even though my mom, dad, and brother enjoyed how this Moscato tasted with the cheesecake, I have to say that I didn't. I would take a bite of cheesecake and then take a sip of the wine and the whole experience just seemed to go down hill. This Moscato took too much of the sweetness away from the cheescake; it didn't build up, reinforce, or contrast the cheesecake very much. Maybe cheesecake and Moscato aren't good to pair with each other. I was glad that my parents and brother enjoyed the pairing, though.

Overall, I felt that the wine dinner with my mom, dad, and brother went very well! My parents and brother aren't really much into wine (and don't have much experience with it), but I think they really enjoyed intentionally pairing wine with food instead of just drinking it by itself. As for myself, I think I did an acceptable job of pairing the correct wine with the different courses of dinner, but I could have done better. This is why I depend on my experiences with different wines and different foods so that I can learn and pair wine with food even better at another wine dinner in the future!