Wine & Cheese Pairing #2

The 3 wines with the 3 cheeses.

To start the weekend off right, my roommate and I decided to do another wine and cheese pairing! This time, we paired the following three wines: Morelli Moscato D'asti, Barefoot Riesling, & Montelliana Prosecco with the following three cheeses: Sargento Extra Sharp Yellow Cheddar, Black Creek Extra Sharp White Cheddar, & Maple Leaf Smoked Gouda. This was my first time every trying gouda cheese, and I had also never tried Prosecco before, so I was excited to add some new flavors and tastes to my palate. Below you can see the three individual wines and the three individual cheeses in their packages. 

             

                Maple Leaf Smoked Gouda

Black Creek White Cheddar

Sargento Sharp Cheddar

             

                        Montelliana Prosecco

Morelli Moscato D'asti

Barefoot Riesling

Morelli Moscato D'asti

Black Creek White Cheddar

I first tried the Morelli Moscato D'asti with the Black Creek White Cheddar. These two paired well together. the crumbles of the white cheddar actually made for a unique texture with the bubbles of the moscato. This moscato went down very smooth and it was very sweet with blasts of honey flavors. Overall, I really enjoyed these to items paired together. 

Morelli Moscato D'asti

Maple Leaf Smoked Gouda

Next I paired the Morelli Moscato D'asti with the Maple Leaf Smoked Gouda. This paring was very bland to me. The gouda was extremely silky in texture which was kind of refreshing to me after tasting the bubbles, but it left a weird rubbery aftertaste in my mouth, which I was definitely not a fan of. 

Morelli Moscato D'asti 

Sargento Sharp Cheddar

I then paired the Morelli Moscato D'asti with the Sargento Sharp Cheddar cheese. I loved this pairing because moscato is one of my favorite wines and yellow cheddar is my favorite cheese. This is one of my go-to pairing because all of the flavors are very well balanced. The extreme sweetness of the wine and the sharpness of the cheddar leaves for a blast of flavors in the mouth. 

Barefoot Riesling 

Maple Leaf Smoked Gouda

Next, I paired the Barefoot Riesling with the Maple Leaf Smoked Gouda. I again did not like this pairing very much because this cheese gave me a very rubbery aftertaste and it overpowers all of the flavors in the wine. I think it is fair to say that I do not like the smoked gouda cheese. 

Barefoot Riesling

Black Creek White Cheddar

I then paired the Barefoot Riesling with the Black Creek White Cheddar. I thought this pairing was interesting. I didn't like this pairing but I also didn't dislike it. Although this wine was sweet, it still left a unique tart blast as a finisher, and I didn't think that paired well with the flavors or the texture of this cheese. The flavors in my mouth were too pronounced following this wine and cheese pairing. 

Barefoot Riesling

Sargento Sharp Cheddar

Next, I decided to pair the Barefoot Riesling with the Sargento Sharp Cheddar. I really liked this pairing! I thought the flavors balanced out even more perfectly than the moscato and sharp cheddar. I think this wine had a certain level of tartness to it that the moscato did not, so it went well with the sharpness of the cheddar. 

Prosecco 

Black Creek White Cheddar

I then paired the Prosecco with the Black Creek White Cheddar. I hated all pairings with this wine because I thought that it tasted exactly like a Natural Light beer. The white cheddar was too pronounced to go with this tart and bubbly of a wine. I didn't think there was anything complimentary about this pairing. 

Prosecco

Maple Leaf Smoked Gouda

Next, I paired the Prosecco with the Maple Leaf Smoked Gouda. I again didn't like this pairing, but at this point the cheese had gotten a little bit warmer and I could really taste the smokiness of the cheese way more than I could in the beginning. It tasted exactly like the smell of the New France section of Busch Gardens. Since I don't like this wine, there were really no flavors to compliment the flavors of the cheese. 

Prosecco 

Sargento Sharp Cheddar

Lastly, I paired the Prosecco with the Sargento Sharp Cheddar. I love this cheese, but as I mentioned in my previous posts above, there were no flavors for me to pull from this wine, so I couldn't find any complimentary values to the pairing with the cheese. 

            

                  Me tasting the wine.  

Me tasting the cheddar cheese

The wines with the cheeses

Overall, this was yet another great experience! I love coming together with all of my friends to try new wines and new cheeses. I learned two things very quickly from this pairing experience, and it is that 1. I will never buy or taste a Prosecco again in the future and 2. I do not like gouda cheese. Like I mentioned in my posts before, I really didn't enjoy anything paired with the Prosecco because I was so distracted by the way that it tasted. There were some interesting aspects to the gouda cheese, but in most cases it left a rubbery aftertaste that was not very appealing. Overall, the white cheddar and the yellow sharp cheddar cheeses paired very well with the other wines. I would definitely recommend the Riesling with the yellow cheddar cheese!