Dinner - Blu (around the world)

Look how excited he is to participate!

Location
Blu Wine & Food is known for its large wine selection near the University of Oklahoma campus, as well as its well flavored food. Once I saw it on the list of places that are "approved" for a dinner and wine blog, I was sold! I decided to grab my boyfriend and head to Blue to try out a wine flight and three foods for this tasting. 

Selecting

For my selection, I decided to take advantage of the daily late-lunch specials Blu offered from 3-6pm. On this list were various types of soups, sandwiches, salads and other main dish items. Based on previous lectures and readings for this class, I wanted to try three diverse food types to pair with the three wines I chose to try.

SO many food and wine options!

The wine flight I chose is Passport.

This blog is called "around the world," because after consulting with a Blu waiter about foods and wines to pair for the best price, she recommended a variety of dishes -- luckily, all items I liked!

Wine

The special gave various options to "choose two" from, and I saw that wine flights offered three samples of wine. After taking a very... very long glance at the menu and being mesmerized by my options, I chose to sample the Passport wine flight which came with Stemmari Nero d'Avola, Domaine de la Damase Grenache and Loca Linda Malbec. I chose this flight because I love red wine, and I had heard of Grenache in lectures many times but wasn't sure if I had tried it myself. I also knew Argentina Malbec's have a good reputation. 

Beginning with the Stemmari Nero d'Avola -- this wine's description sounded like it'd be very fruit-forward, and I thought the "velvet" description would be interesting. Upon smelling this wine, I definitely smelled the violet, which I thought in my head was lavender at first. I definitely didn't want to say this wine smelled floral, but it smelled like violet for sure, a more aggressive, less calming violet scent. This scent reminded me of cleaner -- fresh and distinct. This may be the acid I was smelling, but who knows! After tasting, I could definitely sense the red fruits. Pomegranate isn't necessarily in my list of fruit tastes I detect, but after reading it on the description, I could definitely agree with that descriptor. It came off fruity and a bit cirtusy, but was smoother than expected from its scent. I also noticed this wine was served a bit more chilled than the other two.

Next up was the Domaine de la Damase Grenache. I had never felt like I knew what leathery smelled or tasted like, but I definitely smelled leather in this wine. The scent wasn't very aromatic, and I had to search for descriptors to come up with a name for it. After reading that it was leathery, I could detect it. Upon tasting, I could taste acid and citrus in this wine. I wasn't originally a huge fan of it, though it wasn't terrible or "bad" tasting to me. I just knew I enjoyed the first one better. Before food, I definitely tasted acid and citrus, but not so much fruit nor vanilla. To be continued...

Lastly was the Loca Linda Malbec from Argentina. The smell of this wine was floral and perfume-y, just like the description. I had never smelled a wine that smelled simply good, and this was an exception. From the immediate hit on my tongue this wine felt like it had a kick, and tasted citrusy. The grapefruit descriptor given could be detected after reading it, as it wasn't the lemon-y citrus taste I was used to, but still rang me as citrusy. I can see why this is called crisp, as it seems bold but goes down and leaves a crisp feeling.

Food

The food I experienced with was red pepper soup, a caprese sandwich and a chicken quesadilla. While I wouldn't necessarily put these foods together, it was very interesting to try a super flavored soup, a herbal (basil-y) sandwich and a hearty chicken and cheese quesadilla with wine.

Caprese sandwich.

Red pepper soup (made with a five cheese blend).

Chicken quesadilla.

From previous lectures, I remembered that cheese is thought to go well with wine because of the fat it has in it. This inspired me to get three foods that likely contain a lot of fat (and cheese), which may balance out the wines I had. Our waitress recommended these food items, even with the wine we had already ordered, so we gave it a try.

I'll preface the pairings by giving brief descriptions of the foods themselves. The red pepper soup was very flavorful and had many spices, but I would not say it was spicy. Second, I love capreses -- whether it's in salad or sandwich form -- and this caprese sandwich had a good mix of mozzarella cheese, tomatoes, basil and balsamic vinaigrette. Last, the chicken quesadilla was hearty and full of rich cheese flavors, which looked and tasted like a mix of various cheeses. 

Prior to taking this class, I always enjoyed wine flights because they explain the tastes I'm supposed to be able to detect from each wine. I used to have no idea what these meant, let alone their opposites and how food may enhance these flavors. I was excited to be able to come up with various takeaways from these pairings.

The descriptions of each wine I was given in the wine flight. My take on these are below.

Wine + Food Unite

After the many different ways I tried the food with each wine, the wine before/after each food, several bites of food then wine in between, etc., I came up with a few key takeaways between the flavors. 

Stemmari Nero d'Avola...
Tasted much less complex and way more fruity after tasting the red pepper soup. It seems the soup made the underlying flavors come out much, much more, causing fruit to be enhanced in this wine. While I felt this way, my boyfriend said he loved trying the quesadilla with this wine because of the "mix of flavors." Don't think he has the whole description thing down -- but I'm on board with it!

Domaine de la Damase Grenache...
This wine had the most notable difference for me between its flavors without food and its flavors with food. As I said before, this wine didn't spark must interest in me originally. However, after trying the caprese sandwich with it, it's vanilla flavors came to the forefront! It tasted much more enjoyable and different from other wines after this pairing, and I kept drinking it with the caprese because it was so vanilla tasting and it blew my mind that I hadn't tasted that before. I originally tasted acid in this wine, and I felt like the red pepper soup overtook this acid, making it seem a little more boring than it originally would.

Loca Linda Malbec...
Tasted much more crisp after eating the caprese sandwich. I didn't know what I meant by thinking "crisp" for this wine after the food pairing until I tried the quesadilla, then this wine. When I did this, I could taste the apple flavor much more in this wine than I did before. It felt less "bold" on the tongue after eating any food before it, which made it seem like the food made the wine less tannic and bitter and more light. I particularly thought this wine went well with the red pepper soup as well, because it complimented the richness of the wine. Matching body is a perfect example with this wine and the food, as I liked the two bold flavors together. I would love to try a caprese salad with this wine next instead of a caprese sandwich, because I bet with basil, balsamic and mozzarella flavor that isn't limited by the bread, this wine would bring out a large expression of flavors.

Conclusion
I'd definitely say none of these wines tasted absolutely the same originally as they did after with a food pairing. I was very interested while making these notes at dinner, because I didn't know I'd be able to detect so many flavor differences. I can't wait to experiment more with wines and foods that compliment each other, and even wine and foods that may not -- just for comparison. I love any excuse to try wine, and this wine dinner blog was so fun to prepare for/execute!