Monday, February 2, 2015

Wine-Thirty!

Recently, a high school acquaintance and I re-connected on Facebook through her love of Jamberry. She has placed several orders with me and I'm so thankful for it. One day I was browsing on Facebook and something on my feed caught my eye. I asked her a question about an image she had posted and learned that she's a wine rep for a company called The Traveling Vineyard. WELL. Because she's been a great customer I inquired about hosting my own party for her and she was so excited about it!

I could KICK myself because I took nary a picture. Not a SINGLE one. And I even thought, "I should go grab my phone!" and then didn't. The party itself was SO simple. Lisa arrived about 30 minutes early and set up. About a week beforehand she emailed me what she was bringing (5 wines) and what foods worked best. I just picked and prepared 1-2 foods for each wine. Easy peasy! We learned a TON that I didn't know and I was so shocked at the difference FOOD made with the wines. Who knew!? {Non-box-wine drinkers, that's who!} {I don't really drink box wines...but I do pick the prettiest bottles - I just have no clue what I like!}

Since I didn't take any pictures, I thought I'd share the foods and what they paired with.

Our first wine was one called Pebble - a Viognier. {I'd never heard of that kind!} I enjoyed it, but it wasn't overly sweet like I usually enjoy. We served it with Pumpkin Pie Dip and Ginger Snaps. It was deeeeelicious with the food. Pumpkin Pie Dip was 1 can of pumpkin, 2 containers of Cool-Whip, 1 5 oz package of vanilla pudding {not made...just the powder}, 1 tablespoon of pumpkin pie spice. Mix all of the ingredients together, sprinkle the top with cinnamon, and serve with ginger snaps. Mmmm.

Our second wine was a Riesling called Calamity Sue. This was my favorite of the whole night. It was so, so, so good. We paired this with Brie, Gorgonzola, and Wheat Thins. I am a huge cheese fan so the wine + the cheese was excellent.

Next we had a wine called Pedretti that was a Nero D'Avola. It was a red and I typically don't love reds {they sort of taste like nail polish remover to me}. I didn't like it at all before food, but then paired with the Pizza Dip that I made made a huge difference. The pizza dip recipe was a pinterest find and it was delicious! You can find that recipe HERE.

The fourth wine was another red. It was called Rayado and was a Cabernet Sauvignon. I felt the same about it as the Pedretti - I am still not a fan of red, but food made it better! I thought that was so neat. {I knew food and wine pairings were important but I hadn't experienced that before!} We paired that with dark chocolate brownies.

Our last wine was a dessert wine. It was called Double Date and was a Sweet American Rose. To cut the sweetness we served Key Lime Pie with it. I enjoyed this one, but a little goes a long way with something that sweet. It was probably my third favorite of the night.

Overall, the wine tasting was SO much fun. I had a great group of friends come over and attend. Lisa, who is a sweet friend and great Jamberry customer, got lots of orders which I'm so happy about! If you're local and interested in hosting your own, let me know and I'll get you her information! I would do it again in a heartbeat!

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