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Wine & Cheese Wow! Pairings at Cloverdale’s Friday Night Live

Filed under Mendocino County (CA), Music, Red Wine Wow! Pairings, Sonoma County (CA) Tasting Ventures, White Wine Wow! Pairings, Wine & Cheese Tasting Events

Sep 27

We recently ventured to Cloverdale, California and experienced Wow! pairings of wines and cheeses while we enjoyed the lively Friday Night Live & Certified Farmers Market in “America’s Coolest Small Town” (according to the 2010 Readers’ Choice Poll, Budget Travel.com).

"Friday Night Live"

The evening was a lot of fun as we had lawn seating in front of the stage and dance floor for a live musical concert featuring the very talented Steve Pile Band. So while we thoroughly enjoyed Steve’s music and watched energetic dancers of all ages, we also greatly enjoyed our pairings of two excellent wines with two very interesting cheeses.

Here are the highlights of this venture in our quest for those pairings that give our taste buds and olfactory nerve cells that exhilarating experience of “Wow!, this wine and cheese combination is fantastic!”

Friday Night Live audience enjoying the music

Buying Cheese

We began our adventure at The Cheese Shop in Healdsburg (423 Center Street near the Raven Theatre) where Doralice Handal has a very nice selection of artisanal cheeses. We bought two excellent cheeses there:

(1) Vella Cheese Company’s Dry Monterey Jack — a firm, pale yellow, cow’s milk cheese with a sweet nutty flavor. Produced in Sonoma, California.

(2) Beehive Cheese Company’s Barely Buzzed — a full-bodied cow’s milk, flavored cheddar cheese with a smooth texture and nutty flavor. It has a unique rind rub of blended Colorado Legacy Coffee Company’s South American, Central American and Indonesian beans roasted to different styles, with French Superior Lavendar buds ground with the coffee. It’s a very interesting cheese with a variety of flavor sensations, so we were wondering how it would interact with the wines we chose. This cheese is produced in Uintah, Utah.

The Cheese Shop in Healdsburg

Buying Wine

From Highway 101, the South Cloverdale exit takes you to a small shopping center which is anchored by Ray’s Food Place supermarket at 1139 South Cloverdale Blvd.

Ray's Food Place in Cloverdale

There we purchased two wines from their large selection of Sonoma County and Mendocino County wines:

(1) Pedroncelli 2008 Dry Creek Valley Mother Clone Zinfandel. This is a full-flavored wine with delicious senses of blackberry, spice and pepper.

(2) Parducci 2005 Mendocino County Chardonnay. This is a smooth, rich, dry wine with gratifying flavors of apple, melons, and citrus.

Our Wow! Combinations

We always want to remind you that there are no “wrong answers” in Wow! pairings. One person’s individual taste buds, olfactory nerve cells, and mind-state can produce a Wow! response to the interaction of specific wines with specific cheeses while another person may not get the Wow!ness of that combination, but does experience a Wow! effect from a completely different wine and cheese pairing. Therefore, all Wow! pairings are valid.

Norm and Barbara each experienced “Wow!” interactions in our pairings:

(1) Barbara said “Wow!” to the Barely Buzzed cheese paired with the Pedroncelli Zinfandel. Her experience was that the wine dramatically enhanced the pleasing coffee flavor in the cheese, resulting in a lingering and satisfying aftertaste.

(2) Norm enjoyed an explosive Wow! combined flavor when he paired the Barely Buzzed cheese with the Parducci Chardonnay.

(3) Both Norm and Barbara expressed a Wow! reaction to the Vella Dry Monterey Jack cheese when mouth-swished and consumed with the Parducci Chardonnay. The predominant flavors of both the wine and the cheese held and enhanced each other. A complex and exciting taste sensation.

Bonus: Captivating Music

Our bonus on this venture was discovering the eclectic music of the Steve Pile Band. We enjoyed the entire evening concert which featured Steve’s impressive range of original songs styled in a hybrid of blues, folk, and melodic African guitar music, with a hint of country too.

Steve Pile Band

Very entertaining.

On to future Wow! pairing discoveries

So that’s our report on this venture. We are thoroughly enjoying our visits to wineries and cheesemakers/cheese vendors in their picturesque locations, and we continue to encourage you to try your own ventures focused on finding your special Wow! wine and cheese pairings. When you do, let us know what you have discovered by leaving a comment for us.

Here’s to your exhilarating quest!

We will keep you posted on our next venture in which we plan to find more Wow! wine and cheese pairings as we visit exciting wineries and cheesemakers/cheese vendors.

Tagged as: California, cheese, cheese vendors, Cheesemakers, Cloverdale, Mendocino County, Music, wine, wine & cheese pairing, Wine Country, Wineries

66 Comments

66 Responses to “Wine & Cheese Wow! Pairings at Cloverdale’s Friday Night Live”

Get Backlinks said on September 28th, 2010 at 12:53 am

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Tim Welsh said on September 28th, 2010 at 6:24 am

Thank you so much for taking the time to share your experience with our Barely Buzzed. I have had Barely Buzzed with Parducci Zinfindel before and it was great for me too. Another favorite is Gnarly Head old vine zin. My all time favorite was pairing a 2006 Archery Summit – Red Hills Pinot Noir with Barely Buzzed.

Doralice is awesome.

Best!

/tim welsh – founder, Beehive Cheese Co.
Norm & Barbara Ray said on September 28th, 2010 at 8:47 am

Thanks, Tim. We look forward to pairing Barely Buzzed with the Gnarly Head Zin and with the Archery Summit Red Hills Pinot.

Norm
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