Dinner - Blue Apron Restaurant & Red Rooster Bar

So I celebrated my three-year anniversary with my boyfriend, Chris, last Wednesday and we both saw it as the perfect opportunity to try out The Blue Apron Restaurant and Red rooster Bar. Unfortunately, it was raining the night we went so we were unable to get a picture of the outside of the restaurant (but it wasn't that exciting on the outside anyway). The restaurant was situated in downtown Salem which is a small town. The seating area in the restaurant was tiny but very nicely decorated.

Roses Chris gave me

We decided to have the pan-seared scallops small plate as an appetizer to share and I got the Mahi Mahi, while Chris got the Swordfish as our main courses. We paired our meals with the D'arenburg The Hermit Crab Viognier. Having tasted the wine prior to our dinner and talking with our waitress, we decided that the viognier would pair perfectly with our fish.

We both thought the wine was chilled perfectly (not too cold or too warm) and came in a holding container that was also from the D'arenburg vineyard, which was pretty neat. It has a lovely golden yellow color, similar to that of chardonnay, as you can see from the picture. It is medium to full bodied but is very crisp in my opinion. It almost has a buttery finish. Very nice and strong fruit smells like maybe melon? It is definitely becoming one of my favorite white wines. Although this wine is probably a little heavier than whites usually paired with fish, we wanted to see how it would pair since we are so fond of the wine.

Mmmm, scallops

The scallop dish was fantasticly rich. This is, by far, the most rich in flavor scallop dish I have ever had. The scallops were pan-seared and sliced into thirds (they were HUGE) and split among the two of us. They lay on top of a potato puree with caramelized onions and a smoky sauce. Watercress lay on top of the ensemble, but I passed on them since I am not fond of their flavor. The entire combination was awesome! The scallops were perfectly tender and buttery and the onions provided a great sweetness. The smoky sauce was a bit over-the-top for my palate because I think smoke can overpower the flavors of food. However, what I thought was interesting was that the wine really tamed down that smoky flavor. Man! This was a great pair! I could have eaten the scallops large plate with the wine for dinner and been set! So delicious!

My Mahi-Mahi was, of course, fantastic as well. It was pan-seared and served on top of some sort of potato something-or-other. The fish was perfectly flaky with a lovely butter sauce. I actually think the wine was a little too heavy for this dish. Mahi-mahi is such a light flavor fish that the viognier was actually too bold for it. A white bordeaux or sauvignon blanc may have paired a little better with it.

Chris's Swordfish

Chris and I after dinner

We finished our meal with a couple french press coffees and we split a homemade cheesecake, which was seriously the best cheesecake I've had in awhile. The coffee was also rockin'! A very nice older gentleman noticed we were taking pictures and celebrating an event so he offered to take a picture of the two of us together. He was very sweet!

The restaurant got two BIG thumbs up in our books!! A little pricey but definitely well-worth the price and most certainly worth the 45 minute drive, especially for a special occasion! We are definitely thinking of going back here before the end of the semester. Great place!

Dinner - Wine Party

Me prepping the wines and glasses for the party

Wine & Food Tasting Party


My dad has reminisced about the fancy wine parties he and my mom used to have before they had six kids and has been saying he wants to have one for a couple years now. Being in this class gave us the perfect opportunity to throw jointly throw such an event. We invited several of our close friends and family, Chris and I organized the wine and food selections, my parents offered their house, and we split the bill. Here is how things turned out...


We decided to go with three reds and three white wines, each of a different varietal.

                                         Red Wines:

Anciano Tempranillo, 2001

Region & Country: Valdepenas, Spain

Price: $10.95

Muirwood Pinot Noir, 2009

Region & Country: Monterey, California, United States

Price: $16.99

Medalla Real Cabernet Sauvignon, 2008

Region & Country: Maipo Valley, Chile

Price: $14.99

White Wines:

D'Arenburg The Hermit Crab Viognier, 2009

Region & Country: McLaren Vale, Australia

Price: $13.99

Tratoria Busa Alla Torre Da Lele Pinot Grigio, 2010

Region & Country: Murano, Venice

Price: $7.95

Nobillo Icon Sauvignon Blanc, 2009

Region & Country: Marlborough, New Zealand

                                                                                      Price: $14.99

We also chose a wide variety of foods to go with the wines - goat cheese, brie, parmesan, smoked gouda, taleggio cheese, water crackers, wheat crackers, butter crackers, dark, milk and vanilla bean white chocolates, steamed asparagus, pears, avocado, green and red seedless grapes, crostini, black and green olives, plain white italian bread, seasoned olive oils for dipping, and grape tomatoes. We also supplied drinking water for those wanting to clean their palate in between wines.

The table filled with food

Each guest was given a tasting sheet that Chris and I created. A copy of that sheet is shown below. We intentionally left out any ratings of the wine, the price, and the varietal so as not to bias anyone's thoughts.
*PIC*

We began with the whites. Each glass was adorned with a wine charm. I used a standard shot glass to fill each glass with the wines. Each guest was instructed to grab a glass, remember the charm attached, taste the wine and write notes, and then (when they were finished) rinse the glass using our pitcher of water and "dump bucket," and set the glass back on the table for the next wine. Once everyone's glasses were back on the sideboard, I poured the next wine.

The first round of white wine. If you look closely you can see the little wine charms on the bottom of the glasses.

After we finished the three white wines, I gathered everyone to discuss the items left off the sheet and talk a little about the wines. The same was done after the three reds were finished being tasted.

The glasses used for the red wines

The glasses used for the white wines

I found that the most interesting part of the whole experience was hearing how each person's palate reacted to the wines and the foods eaten with them. Some people really liked one wine, while others thought it was their least favorite. Some people thought parmesan cheese went well with the cabernet sauvignon, while others thought the brie tasted better with it. It was very fascinating. Rather than go into full detail about other people (this is my blog after all), I will give the brief notes I took on each wine. Since I was trying to play hostess at the same time, I did not get the chance to write a lot for each tasting.

Wine #1: D'Arenburg Viognier 

Smooth, medium bodied, melons flavors maybe, not a lot of heat, nicely balanced, very tasty, my favorite

Wine #2: Italian Pinot Grigio

Fruity, can smell the alcohol on the nose very strongly, nice, very light, pale yellow color, would probably go really well with fish, tasted really smooth and creamy with the brie

Wine #3: Nobillo Icon Sauvignon Blanc

Smells really weird but can't quite figure out what it smells like, I thought it smelled a little like asparagus, not as well balanced - more heat, lighter body, my least favorite one

Wine #4: Tempranillo

Tasted a lot like a Chianti to me, strong cherry and currant flavors, a little peppery, smooth mouthfeel, really liked this one, tasted really yummy with the milk chocolate and cheeses

Wine #5: Pinot Noir

Very thin looking, looks almost liked dyed water, lighter body, a lot of heat came across on this one, not much depth of flavor, tasted very "thin", eating parmesan with it helped it out

Wine #6: Cabernet Sauvignon

Tart flavor for a cabernet, strong tannins, slight hint of tobacco came across, tasted great with the brie (made it taste much smoother), wasn't very impressed

We opened the three reds in the morning to allow some oxygen into them, then we decanted them about 4 hours prior to the start of the party. Considering this, I was very surprised at how aggressive they each tasted. I wonder how much more aggressive they would be if we hadn't let them breathe!

Overall, I think everyone had a good time...

Christopher being silly

My dad posing for his close-up

Shawn (Chris's mom) tasting one of the whites

Marc (Chris's dad) writing his notes

Noreen (neighbor)

My cousins and my dad enjoying the food

My brother is the creeper on the right in the black shirt

Chris talking about the wine

Friends, Jim and Lin, talking with my brother and mom (in purple)

More talking

And some more...

The group being silly

Normal group picture

We will definitely be doing this again! It was a blast!

Tasting - Santola Vinho Verde, Protocolo Blanc, Resonata Nero D'avola, Don Ramon Tinto, Heinz Eifel Shine Riesling

Tasting #1: Santola Vinho Verde

Varietal: Vinho Verde
Region: Not applicable
Country: Portugal
Year: No vintage
Price: $7.95

"Vintage Cellar" Review: "Soft and creamy, although with just the right Vinho Verde bite, this is a crisp and clean wine, boasting light pear and pink grapefruit flavors. Off dry and very fresh."

My Review: This was my second experience with a vinho verde. It definitely has the same light fruit aromas that the other vinho verde had. The color of this wine was very clear. The first vinho verde I had almost had a slight carbonation to it, while I thought this one didn't have that quality. I'm not sure if that is something characteristic of that varietal or just that particular wine I had. The body was just as light as I expected from the color. It was thin and very crisp. It would be great in the middle of summer. Chris said he thought it tasted like adult Fresca.

Tasting #2: Protocolo Blanc

Varietal: Protocolo

Region: Not applicable

Country: Spain

Year: 2009

Price: $6.95

"Vintage Cellar" Review: "87 points, Stephan Tanzer. Greenish gold. Subtle aromas of mint, lemon and orange, with a hint of honeysuckle. Dry, understated and focused, offering clean citrus and melon flavors and slow-building sweetness. Finishes dry and brisk, with an echo of lemon. As usual, this is an outstanding value."

My Review: This one smelled just like a chardonnay to me. It had that rich oak and distinct fruit aroma of a chardonnay. However, when I tasted it, it seemed a little light in depth. It wasn't very complex and didn't seem to have a lot of flavor to me. It was dry, which I liked but it was oddly light for its intense nose aromas.

Tasting #3: Resonata Nero D'avola

Varietal: Nero D'avola

Region: Not applicable

Country: Italy

Year: 2010

Price: $6.95

"Vintage Cellar" Review: "Dense ruby red with violet reflections. Lush and ripe bouquet full of mulberries, blackberries and spice. Harmonious and well-balanced with good berry fruit in a spicy background."

My Review: This one was very nice! It had a very subtle vanilla flavor that hit me first. After that, I tasted cherry and a little tobacco. Dry, well-balanced, and didn't have a lot of heat. We bought two bottles of this one!

Tasting #4: Don Ramon Tinto

Varietal: Tinto 

Region: Not applicable

Country: Spain

Year: 2008

Price: $7.95

"Vintage Cellar" Review: "75% Grenache, 25% Tempranillo. Aged 3 months in American Oak casks. Ruby red in color, with creamy aromas of earth and cherry. Flavor turns toward deeper and darker black cherry and raspberry on a medium framework. A subtle earthiness underneath the bright fruit adds some depth and complexity."

My Review: This wine had very strong tannins and an interesting flavor. I have never tasted grenache by itself but since I have had tempranillo before, I suspect the odd flavor was from the grenache. It was almost a little bitter. I didn't taste hardly any of the tempranillo, which I suppose makes sense since it only constituted 25% of the wine. This was alright for me.

Tasting #5: Heinz Eifel Shine Riesling

Varietal: Riesling

Region: Not applicable

Country: Germany

Year: 2010

Price: $8.95

"Vintage Cellar" Review: "Flint and mineral notes accent pineapple and lime aromas, while on the palate, the wine shows plenty of ripe, citrusy fruit flavors. Tangy acids on the long finish provide balance."

My Review: The first word that I said and then wrote down about this wine was "whoa." It had a VERY sweet smelling aroma and a VERY strong, odd flavor in it that completely overpowered the wine. Perhaps it was the flint? I'm not sure what it was, but this was absolutely undrinkable for me.

Tasting - Cantina Villafranca Frascati, Morro Bay White Oak Estates Chardonnay, Coreto Tinto, Charles Thomas Cotes du Rhone, Lost Vineyards Spumante Dolce

Tasting #1: Cantina Villafranca Frascati

Varietal: Blend - Malvasia di Candia, Trebbiano Toscano, Malvasia del Lazio, Grechetto
Region: Frascati
Country: Italy
Year: No year
Price: $7.95

"Vintage Cellar" Review: "Produced from a selection of the best grapes located in the Frascati Doc production area. Made from 45% Malvasia di Candia, 15% Trebbiano Toscano, 25% Malvasia del Lazio, 15% Grechetto (Greco). Intense yellow color with greenish reflections. Characteristic persistent fresh and fruity aromas. Excellent as an apertif and paired with fish, seafood, or white meat."

My Review: Very pale in color and smells like a brut champagne upon first impression. The weird thing about this wine was that I thought it was both sweet and dry at the same time. It might have been the fruit components of the wine that made it seem sweeter. It had a very light body that may make it a great pair with seafood. I thought I may have picked up on some pear as well.

Tasting #2: Morro Bay White Oak Estates Chardonnay

Varietal: Chardonnay

Region: Lodi, California

Country: United States

Year: 2009

Price: $5.95

"Vintage Cellar" Review: "Vanilla cream soda nose with a slice of fresh cut pineapple. Full body, tropical fruit, spice and pleasing vanilla oak note linger in the finish. Sweet flavor on the palate is from sur-lie aging the wine on the primary yeast lees for 7 months. A versatile style of wine that can be served chilled with fine cuisine or a glass with friends. Certified Green by Lodi Rules Sustainable Winegrowers."

My Review: This was a very nice wine for me! It had a great oaky flavor with a little bit of vanilla flavor in it. I found it to be very smooth on my palate and easy to drink. I really liked this wine.

Tasting #3: Coreto Tinto

Varietal: Tinto

Region: Lisboa Region

Country: Portugal

Year: 2008

Price: $6.95

"Vintage Cellar" Review: "This red from the Coreto range has loads of dark berry fruit with a hint of new oak creating a soft, velvet structure that makes it very easy to drink. Red currant and juicy acidity."

My Review: I definitely picked up on the currants, cherry, and spice flavors in this wine. I really liked this wine as well. I thought it had great complexity of flavor and a great mouthfeel. I didn't really want to use the word "smooth" because it didn't seem quite right but something about the structure of the wine made it feel very nice in my mouth.

Tasting #4: Charles Thomas Cotes-du-Rhone

Varietal: Cotes-du-Rhone

Region: Cotes-du-Rhone

Country: France

Year: No year

Price: $8.95

"Vintage Cellar" Review: "Wine Advocate, 87 pts. From a 140+-acre estate near the well-known Cotes du Rhone village of Point Saint Esprit emerges this juicy Cotes du Rhone, a blend of 50% Syrah, 40% Grenache and 10% Mourvedre. Well-made, with loads of berry fruit and a heady, meaty, peppery nose with a hint of Provencal herbs, the wine is fresh, lively, and best drunk over the next 2 years."

My Review: The first thing I wrote down about this wine was that it smelled funny. I couldn't quite pinpoint what exactly the aroma was but it was very off-putting. It had an interesting flavor that I also couldn't quite describe. This is my second or third experience with a Cotes-du-Rhone and I have not liked them so far. It might just be the varietal. There's some sort of flavor in them that my palate doesn't particularly like.

Tasting #5: Lost Vineyards Spumante Dolce

Varietal: Moscato

Region: Unknown

Country: Italy

Year: No year

Price: $4.95

"Vintage Cellar" Review: "Pale silvery straw color. Floral aromas of apples, peaches, and potpourri follow through on a round, frothy entry to a fruity medium bodied sweet wine with a good depth and tangy peach fruit and a breezy, harmonious green apple kissed finish."

My Review: Very floral aroma and flavor. I do not know a lot of about Moscatos but it seems that that floral component is very common in them. It was very sweet as well. Wasn't a huge fan of this one. All I could get from it was intense floral flavor and extreme sweetness.

Dinner - "The Palisades" (Old World vs. New World Cabernet Sauvignons)

This was my first time hearing of The Palisades restaurant in Eggleston, VA. It is located about 10 miles south of Blacksburg, VA heading west on 460. When you are driving, you feel like you are lost but have hopes that some random strip mall will appear where this restaurant is hidden. Except that never happens. It is sudden, but the restaurant is on a residential road among the mountains and houses of this rural town. It is in a refurbished hardware store so you can imagine how fantastic the building is. The parking consists of 10 "spaces" on a gravel/grass area located directly in front and to the side of the building.

The outside of the restaurant

The Palisades does a special wine and food pairing evening every Thursday with a particular theme for the event. For the week we went, it was a comparison of Old World versus New World Cabernet Sauvignons. The wine list was as follows: Bodegas Nekeas from Spain, Dante Reserve from California, and Buitenverwachting from South Africa. The appetizers for the evening were: a seared butternut squash with caramelized shallots, a truffled lamb ravioli, and a blue cheese tart with a celery salad.

The sheet given to us with the wine descriptions

We tasted each of the wines first and then tasted each wine with each appetizer. I'm going to post a picture of each wine with our comments and then a picture of each appetizer with comments from each pairing.

Each of the 3 wines for the tasting

First up was the Bodegas Nekeas Cabernet Sauvignon from Navarra, Spain (far left).

The glass of Bodegas Nekeas

I thought this wine was fantastic! It had a very full and rounded aroma. I tasted cherry, pepper, and a little bit of sweetness from its subtle fruity flavor. I found it to have a very nice finish and could probably have opened up significantly if given the time to breathe. We were so impressed with this wine and the appetizers that we actually specially requested a bottle of this wine to have with the fig and parmesan pizza we ordered after finishing the tasting. Quite delicious!

The bottle we bought!

The second wine we tasted was the Dante Reserve Cabernet from California (in the middle).

Glass of the Dante Reserve

The first thing I noticed upon first look at this wine was that it looked a little thinner than the Spanish wine. It was more of a translucent cherry color rather than the thicker, opaque cherry of the first wine. However, upon tasting it I did not find it to be light bodied. It was more of a medium bodied wine. The only flavor I could pick out of this wine was the currants. It seemed a little one-dimensional to me. I wasn't that impressed.

Lastly, we tasted the Buitenverwachting Beyond Cabernet Sauvignon from South Africa (far left).

The Buitenverwachting

This wine had a very overwhelming tobacco aroma and flavor. I personally was not a fan of this one. It was very peppery, light bodied, and light on the cherry, currant, and fruit flavors. The heat and acidity of this wine was also coming through for me. It didn't seem nearly as well balanced as the Spanish wine.

Underneath each picture of the labeled appetizer, I have each wine followed by a colon. After the colon are the notes of the flavors I thought were brought out by that particular appetizer.

Seared butternut squash with caramelized shallots

Seared butternut squash with caramelized shallots

Bodegas Nekeas: less sweet, more peppery and tangy
Dante: more full bodied and smooth flavor
Buitenverwachting: For some reason, the licorice was really overpowering with this pairing!

Truffled Lamb Ravioli

Truffled Lamb Ravioli

Bodegas Nekeas: The cherry flavor seemed especially pronounced with the ravioli for this wine

Dante: The currants in this wine seemed way more prominent than with the squash or by itself

Buitenverwachting: The licorice flavor was significantly muted and therefore allowed some of the more fruity flavors of the wine to come through

Blue Cheese Tart with Celery Salad

Blue Cheese Tart with Celery Salad

Bodegas Nekeas: The smooth creaminess of this wine came through very strongly with the tart. I think it was because of the creamy cheese on the tart.

Dante: For some reason, this one seemed much more peppery and sharp rather than smooth and creamy with the tart.

Buitenverwachting: The licorice was tamed down with this pairing as well and made the wine a little more smooth and tolerable for my palate.

Overall, we were very impressed with this hidden gem. The tasting and food was fantastic and the environment of the restaurant was one-of-a-kind! The antique ambiance and friendly staff, along with great wine and yummy food made for a wonderful evening!

Me thinking and writing my notes

My boyfriend, Chris, enjoying the tasting