Dinner - Zeppolis

The food lineup

Sunday, April 15th Zeppolis did one of their wine dinners and it really is a good deal.  I don't think there was a particular theme but we had a combination of lighter Italian food (salad, Alfredo pasta, bread with olive spread, fruit and cheese) and heavier food (pizza bread, pasta with meat and marinara sauce, eggplant).  We also had 9 wines, 4 white and 5 red.  Now, obviously we were supposed to pair the lighter foods with the whites and the heavier foods with the reds but it was hard to wait.  I would have preferred if the waiter in charge of the dinner told us which food paired well with which wines but we got just the general pair the whites with the lighter food and the reds with the heavier food.

Pile it on

 I will say this about the food, it was all delicious.  We were told that Zeppolis makes all their pasta fresh and the quality level is noticeable.  They brought out their dishes and set it up buffet style.  There was plenty for everyone to fill up an entire plate and even go back for seconds and the food was definitely worth heading back for seconds.

The wine lineup

The wines were served with somewhat generous pours, maybe a sip and a half. Better pours than the Vintage Cellar tastings for sure.  Many of the wines were from California and Chile with one from Spain and another from Oregon.  I thought for the most part they were decent wines. Below, I'll go through the wines as they were served and give my feelings and opinions on them.

Muscanti Brut Sparkling Wine

 Having just read the Zraly chapter about wines from Spain, specifically the sparkling Cava.  This wine was made from the traditional Cava grapes but was not made in the traditional methode champenoise so it cannot legally be called Cava.  Although I have never had Cava wine I can assume Cava wine tastes similar.  I am used to sparkling wines being really sweet so when this wine was completely dry it surprised me.  There were some fruit flavors but actually not a whole lot of flavor.  at $7.50 this wine was certainly drinkable but I was not blown away by it.  I'm not usually a big sparkling wine fan (with the exception of Vinho Verde) so maybe people who like sparkling wine more than me would enjoy this one.  Of the food I had with this wine, I thought the cheese really paired well.

Mars and Venus Chardonnay

Rubus Chardonnay

 Next up was a Chardonnay show off.  The Mars and Venus Chardonnay 2006 from Central Valley Chile vs. the Rubus 2009 Chardonnay Russian River Valley from California.  There were some differences between how these Chardonnays were made aside from where they were made.  The Rubus was barrel fermented and oaked while the Mars and Venus made no mention of oaking.  I was not impressed with the Mars and Venus at all.  I did not get any of the pineapple or citrus notes in the description and I thought the wine was just bitter.  I got a lot of of vanilla out of the Rubus - a lot. I am a fan of vanilla so there was really no question in my mind that the Rubus was the better wine of the two.  The Rubus was $3 more expensive ($11.99 vs. $8.99) so maybe it was supposed to be better but we all now how imprecise of a predictor price is for wine. 

Borealis "The Northern Whites"

 This next wine, the Borealis 2010 "The Northern Whites" from Willamette Valley, was far and away my favorite wine.  It was apparently not a unanimous decision, though, as the room was polled and only half even liked it.  It was a very crisp, acidic wine with exotic fruit.  It was a refreshing wine - the type of wine you would want on a hot, summer day while sitting by a lake or pool.  I actually did not think it paired particularly well with any of the foods.  It is one of those wines that you can and should just drink by itself. I would call this wine a cross between a Vinho Verde and the Obikwa Sauvignon Blanc, two wines that I really enjoy.  Tasting all sorts of wines this semester I have discovered that this taste combination in a white wine I really enjoy so I might have liked this wine more than most people but I thought it was very good.  At $12.99 it is within my price range and I could see myself looking to buy this wine in the future. 

San Elias Cab Sauv

But now it is on to the reds.  While none of the reds matched the Borealis in my opinion, there were some good ones.  This first red, the San Elias 2010 Cabernet Sauvignon, however, was not good at all.  And this is not my first experience with a San Elias wine - apparently they make lots of inexpensive wines that are frequently at tastings in Blacksburg - and there just is not a San Elias wine that I like. It describes itself as "smoky" but I just thought it smelled like an electrical fire.  The nose was just not good and it tasted much like it smelled. I actually ate food with this wine to get the taste of the wine out of my mouth which I assume is not the purpose of food pairings.  There is not really much more I want to say about this wine. I did not like it.

Kenwood Cab Sauv

This next Cabernet Sauvignon was much better than the San Elias.  Kenwood 2009 Yulupa Cabernet Sauvignon from California is actually a pretty decent wine.  I'm not usually very good at picking out smells and flavors but cherry came out on the nose really strong.  It actually almost smelled the cherry in a cherry coke. This was my second favorite red of the dinner, I like the last one the best, but I thought it was a very good wine.  It is interesting that it was aged in both French and American oak for 20 months.  I don't know what extra flavors they were trying to get in mixing the type of oak the wine was aged in and I actually didn't get a whole lot of oak out of the wine.  This wine did very well with the pasta with the red sauce and the eggplant.  At $11.99 I could see myself buying this wine in the future.

Rubus Old Vine Zinfadel

This next wine, the Rubus 2009 Old Vine (whatever that means) Zinfadel Lodi from California was just ok to me.  Nothing overly special.  Despite its popularity, I do not have much experience with Zinfadels so I was excited to get to taste this one.  I said earlier that I am not very good at picking out particular tastes and smells but the one thing I can tell is black pepper and this was very peppery.  This was another wine described as having "smoke" and that is a flavor I just don't like very much.  I know some people do but that taste is just not for me.  I don't know if the food changed my experience with this wine greatly and that partly might have been because I had already picked through most of the food by the time this wine was poured.  Overall, this was a forgettable wine that I do not have to have again.

Mars and Venus Merlot

 The next wine on tap was the Mars and Venus Merlot from Central Valley Chile.  I did not like the Mars and Venus Chardonnay at all and this wine was pretty boring.  The only thing I can say is it tasted like red wine.  Not bad, not good, I can probably find more interesting wines for $8.99.  While Mars and Venus has good looking bottles, I am probably not going to buy any of their wine in the future unless they improve their wines.

Trentadue 2009 Block 500 Merlot

The last wine was the Trentadue 2009 Block 500 Merlot from Sonoma County California and this was the best red in the line up.  Mostly Merlot with 1% of Montepulciano, Cabernet Sauvignon, Malbec, and Petit Verdot, this wine was the most complex wine of the tasting and also the most expensive.  Price doesn't always imply quality but it is no coincidence that the $18.99 wine was the best when the next highest priced wine was $12.99.  You could tell the winemaker really knows how to balance a very complex wine.  It was definitely the earthiest of all the wines and I think that is a flavor I enjoy.

Wall of wine

I was very impressed with the Zeppolis wine dinner experience in terms of environment, food, wine, and price.  I didn't know this about Zeppolis before the dinner but they sell their wines in their store and restaurant at retail price so you're not getting ripped off when you buy wine from them just because you're in a restaurant.  For $12, you get lots of good food and we all got a fairly good buzz by the end of the night.  We probably got close to 3 glasses of wine by the time the night was all said and done.  I also never experimented with food and wine pairings before as this is my first wine dinner. It is amazing how much food can change the whole wine experience.  I found that many of the reds really improved with food but some of the whites were better without food. I'll be looking forward to going back to Zeppolis in a week when they do their last food and wine pairing of the semester.

Roommate #1

Me! Go Caps!

Roommate #2