Wine Dinner - October 4

My wine class friends and I decided to have our wine dinner for this month at Volare on Campus Corner for lunch. I have always loved their Neapolitan pizzas and Italian cuisine so it only felt right to show them some love for this wine pairing blog post. We went at lunch which was interesting to us as having wine is usually thought to be more of an nighttime affair but then we thought, "Why not a lunch too?"

When we sat down to eat, we thought about splitting some bottles of wine or getting individual glasses of different wines, but settled on the extremely convenient wine flight option. It was still enough wine to do a tasting, but not break the bank. I got a flight of American reds with a Pinot Noir, a Zinfandel, and a Cabernet Sauvignon/Syrah blend. The Pinot was from Elizabeth Rose, the Zinfandel from 1000 Stories, and Cab Sauv/Syrah was from Charles and Charles. 

Our first dish was basically seven different foods because of the nature of the charcuterie board. There were two different cheese, what we thought was a Parmesan and was most certainly Mozzarella. The meats were soppressata, salami, and prosciutto. Olives and bread were also on the board.

I tried to pair each food with one wine along the lines of what might pair best, but I kinda tried different wines if the first pairing wasn't so great. To begin, I paired the Pinot Noir with the cheeses (and also my dessert, not telling what just yet), but specifically with the Parmesan. Before the cheese, it had a super light body and light tannins, but there was a surprising amount of acidity. That acidity was cut down when pairing with the Parmesan which made it a lot better, in my opinion.

After the appetizer we jumped straight into the main dish, and I took it upon myself to grab the delicious Il Diavolo pizza which is my personal go to. It is a spicy pizza with mozzarella, mascarpone, calabrian chiles, and hot nduja sausage. I paired this with the Zinfandel and Cabernet Sauvignon because I thought those would be the best match for this extremely fatty pizza. 

First off, the pizza was super good. As it usually is. The Zinfandel was pretty fruit forward with large plum/fig flavors and had light tannins. The Cab/Syrah was may more tannic with a blackberry flavor and good body. I tried the pizza with both wines and there were similar results. In the Zinfandel, the pizza brought out more of the flavors, most specifically the fruit flavors. The Cab/Syrah had a good starting tannic structure which the fat cut right through and opened it up to more acidity and flavors. This was probably the best pair and most appropriate pair. 

The last pair was my dessert with the Pinot Noir, which was easily the lightest and best choice to go with my canoli. Unfortunately, I didn't take a picture of the canoli because I was really looking forward to eating it. Because the Pinot Noir was a true dessert wine, it didn't pair super well and the canoli actually made it more acidic. 

Overall, the wines and food were super good and I was happy with it, until I realized how much I had ate. Next time I would try better to get specific wines that would pair with specific foods and then I would love to try a real apertif and dessert wine with the meal.