5 wines, 5 cheese pairings: Foodies meet. Part 2 of 2

…Continued from here.

Course #4: Bring on the livestock. My least favourite course of all.
Alright, I can definitively say that I don’t like Malbec, until someone tells me that “this Malbec is different”. Regarding Legends Estates Malbec I wrote the words “smoke” and “tobacco” and, my favourite descriptor of the evening, “Like drinking a pipe”.

Malbec, meet “Clandestin” cheese, a sheep and cow milk cheese. The lady serving it called it her favourite but it was too pungent for me. You can find information about the cheese here and here. I noted that it tastes like an animal. When Sarah declared it to be “barnyardy”, I agreed. The flavour was musty. This cheese reminded me of the smell of rotting hay (some might say “herbal”), like waking through Riverdale Farm’s petting zoo. I might be the first person ever to say that the cheese tasted like a petting zoo. I didn’t like it. Sarah, however, proclaimed, “I like barnyardy cheeses” (one of my favourite quotes of the evening and immediately tweeted).

When at first I tasted the wine and cheese together they mellowed each other out, but then I found that I had two strong tastes in my mouth. I finished the wine, spit out the cheese.

So, a petting zoo-tasting cheese and a wine that tasted like pipe. The next and final course was like heaven in my mouth.

Final wine and cheese combination:  Baco Noir and cheddar

I don’t know if it’s because I disliked the previous course so emphatically or if it was just that good but I was pleased when we concluded with Sandbanks Winery Baco Noir (2007) and Jensen 2 year old cheddar. Who doesn’t like cheddar? The baco noir, from Prince Edward County, was light. I tasted orange and strawberry. I recall that baco noir is characteristically peppery but I didn’t overtly detect that. The high salt content of the cheese might have been responsible for making the wine taste a little bit sweeter but not cloyingly so.

Gamay revisited

Those of us who paid for the full experience then had a chance to revisit some of the five wines. I had another few glasses and noted a change in the taste of the Chateau des Charmes gamay. Whereas earlier I’d only noticed the predominantly cherry taste, my second experience resulted in a honey aroma and the taste of brown sugar. Someone pointed out a petrol smell, which I also caught a whiff of after it was pointed out (I think that wine tasting is in many ways psychological). I tasted more sweetness than previously and wondered if it was my perception of the wine that changed or if the flavour itself had changed as a result of the bottle being open longer.

It wasn’t all wine

Other happenings:

• Author Kathryn Borel read from her soon-to-be-released book Corked: A Memoir. I can’t decide if I want to read the book or not. The content sounds interesting but at times the use of adjectives seemed contrived as if she was trying too hard to paint a picture. It was too adjective heavy for my taste. I commend her for writing the book.

• I won the first raffle prize! Three books courtesy of Simon and Schuster (I almost typed “Wayne and Schuster”): Mark Bittman’s Kitchen Express, Goat Song: A Seasonal Life, A Short History of Herding, and the Art of Making Cheese by Brad Kessler and Wisdom of the Last Farmer by David Mas Masumoto.

Interestingly, yesterday’s National Post has an article titled “Eat some cheese: Canadians are much more than cheddar people”.

If you’re interested in future events like this and are on Twitter you can watch for the hashtag #foodiemeet. If you’re not, I’ll try to remember to post upcoming events here. Cafe Taste runs a number of events and are looking to fill a bus for a road trip to Prince Edward County on Labour Day weekend. Reserve your spot now and get information about other upcoming events at Cafe Taste at their website. If Jeremy’s on board you know it’ll be a good time and educational. He knows his stuff.

Update: Read Sarah’s review at Toronto Tasting Notes. We were hanging out at the event together so it’s interesting to see which opinions we share and where we differ.