Wednesday, July 26, 2017

Discover Classes with CourseHorse: Wine Tasting Class at Dave's Fresh Pasta (Somerville, MA)

CourseHorse is a portal to discover local classes, varying from tech classes, languages, life skills, and of course cooking and wine tasting classes. Even fitness classes are listed. I was invited to experience one of CourseHorse's openings, so naturally I looked for the food-related ones. Browsing through the selection I found numerous cooking classes, a cocktail making class at No. 9 Park, and a number of wine tastings. You can look through the current culinary offerings in Boston here.

I decided to take one of the wine tastings offered at Dave's Fresh Pasta in Somerville. Dave's Fresh Pasta is a gourmet food and wine store, but they also hold events like this wine tasting on a few Thursdays 7:30-9PM each season. The wine tastings at Dave's Fresh Pasta is typically $55 per person. I was there for their Local Cheese and Spring Wines tasting with Vineyard Road, a wine distributor based in Framingham. We tasted five different wines paired with food.

We started with 2015 Murgo Lapilli from Sicily, Italy ($11.95). This wine is 60% Chardonnay and 40% Sauvignon Blanc, which are typical grapes of Italy.
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The wine's apple notes pair well with the Hudson Valley Camembert cheese, apple butter, and apple slices on cracker.
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2016 Domaine Lelievre from Cotes de Toul, Lorraine, France ($16.95). This rose wine is a blend of Gamay and Pinot Noir.
Lorraine is in the northern center France. This region used to make a lot of wines in the 1500s but a lot of disease had diminished the planted area.
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Since it is from Lorraine, it naturally pairs with Quiche Lorraine, which was made Boggy Meadows baby swiss and Tarentaise cheese from Vermont.
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2016 Chateau de Breze "Clos du Midi" from Saumur, Loire Valley, France. This wine is predominantly Chenin Blanc. Even though we are going from rose back to white,this works because the texture is heavier. I really enjoyed this white wine.
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We also tried another wine from the same winery: 2015 Chateau de Breze "Clos Mazarique" made with Cabernet Franc. This wine had a foresty character reminiscent of mushrooms.
Cabernet Franc and Chenin Blanc are the only two grapes allowed to be grown in Saumur.

The wines were paired with Harbison cheese, a creamy cow milk cheese from Jasper Hill Farm in Vermont.
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We finished with some sherry and more cheese served with dried figs, jamon, and Marcona almonds. The sherry was Bodegas Valdespino sherry from Jerez, Spain. This sherry is made 95% Palomino, which is a very dry grape, and 5% Pedro Ximenez.

The cheese paired with this was Bayley Hazen, an aged blue cheese from Jasper Hill Farm.
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The next series of after hours events at Dave's Fresh Pasta will begin in the fall. In the meantime, you can browse CourseHorse's other selections here.

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