Cheese dreams

This morning was most definitely a coffee Friday kind of day. I was snug as a bug this morning all wrapped up in the duvet and totally cosy and comfortable when BAM! 6am alarm goes off. Ugh.
But I dutifully trooped into the cold bathroom to sort myself out for the day ahead.

Swinging by for a coffee was the right decision and I supped on this baby all the way to work.

I think one of the reasons I was a little reluctant to rise this morning was due to the wine and cheese that were sampled last night.....

Remember when I told you guys about the 'Jug and Bottle' that is local to us?

http://www.jugandbottle.co.uk/

Well I bought two tickets for their wine and cheese tasting event which was last night.

The husband and I went over for 7.30pm and were greeted with a beautifully laid table with 5 glasses of wine and 5 cheeses laid out on a plate with some grapes and crackers.

Being the dimbert I am I totally forgot to snap any pictures until after I had done the tasting (it is a special gift being this dim). But I took a couple post-tasting.

We started the evening by doing some simple palette tests using one of the white wines and tasting it with acid (lemon), salty (salt) and sweet (sugar).  These simple tests made us aware how each of the three affected the taste of the wine and helped later in determining what cheese we preferred with which drink.

We then moved onto tasting each wine in turn with a little of each of the five cheeses. It took a little while to get through them but some made surprising combinations. We scored each one with a simple tick or cross based on whether we liked them together or not.

One of the wines turned out to be a cider, this was a medium cider made from blush apples so it had a lovely pink hue.
I absolutely loved this with all of the cheeses. It was best with the calvados dipped French camembert as I thought the apples really complimented each other.


My favourite cheese was a Spanish manchego whereas the husband preferred a smoked hard goats cheese.
He was surprised when he found out what it was; if they had told him it was goats cheese at the start he probably wouldn't have tried it. Proves our mothers right - try it before you say you don't like it!!

 Out of the wines we sampled there was a rioja which was a favourite of mine. I also loved the cider but a quite few didn't (I think it was a status thing rather than a taste issue!!)


It was a really good way to spend an evening and a lovely thing to do together. What it made me realise is that you shouldn't be embarrassed by what you like. It is such a personal thing and we should all suit our own tastes. Find what you like and enjoy it. Whether it is £4.99 or £14.99 if you like it that's all that matters.
Don't be fooled into thinking that the most expensive wine is always the best. We were told last night that in a blind tasting only one person picked out the expensive wine - all the others went for the cheapest!


For those interested, here is the list of what we sampled:


Burnard's Cider Montys Double: 6.25%
Beaujolais Villages Nouveau Chateau du Chatelard 2011 (12.5%)
Chateau de la Peyrade Muscat de Frontignan (15%)
Rioja Vina Palaciega Joven 2009 (13.5%)
Caliterra Chardonnay Reserva 2009 (13.5%)


Coeur de Camembert Calvados
Manchego
Roquefort Troupeau
Garlic Yarg
Quickes Smoked Goats


If you ever have the opportunity for something like this then I'd urge you to give it a go. Our tickets were £10 each and was money well spent for a lovely evening.

This weekend we are doing the santa run to the husbands family down South but I hope to post my secret santa present tomorrow as it arrived today :)


Have a good weekend :)
xx