There is nothing quite like the smell in the air on the first brisk morning of Fall to get you in the mood for the year’s most romanticized season. Pumpkins, falling leaves, pies, apple picking, warm cider – what’s not to love? Something about this season brings us together and envelops us in a reassuring feeling of comfort. It might just be the warmth brought over us from bundling up, but we like to think it’s something a bit more magical than that. In an effort to bask in all that this wonderful season has to offer, my blogger friend Haley and I put together a guide for hosting a get-together over cheese and wine.
The first step is to seek out the perfect ingredients for your gathering and to rally up a few of your loved ones. This part was a one-stop shopping experience for us, as were able to find all the necessary counterparts for our cheese board at none other than Trader Joe’s. Their gourmet cheese selection is a total game changer considering how little you pay for some of the best quality foods.
Now that you’ve got an idea of who you want to spend your afternoon or evening with, and you’re stocked up on an array of cheeses, the next thing is to select a location in which to host the gathering. Getting together around a fireplace or in a cozy kitchen is more than fitting for this type of gathering. We were very lucky with the weather and were able to host our little event outside amongst the fallen leaves.
To keep things fun, we picked out a few wine pairings to go with the different cheeses. A few glasses never hurt anyone, right? When choosing wines, it’s best to stick to a theme whether that be selecting only reds or only whites, choosing younger, sweeter wines or more bitter ones. It helps to do a little bit of “research” beforehand, and figure out which types of wine pair best with the cheeses you have. To make things much easier for yourself, you could also choose a more flexible wine that will taste great with any cheese that you pair it with. We personally stuck with a ‘moon’ theme since the day we had our tasting there was a full moon and we found the many moon wines at Trader Joe’s to have eye-catching labels and were very well-priced.
If you’re creative, then building the cheeseboard itself is the most exciting part of the whole process. We created several different cheese boards, using different platters including cutting boards and a marble slate. To make everything even more rustic, you can use a slate from a craft store as the base of your cheese platter. Once you’ve got your cheese and wines, you’re ready to start laying them out. We used three platters and chose to keep the softer cheeses and the harder cheeses on two separate platters. Whatever you do, don’t forget the bread and charcuterie! A cheese platter is never complete without something sweet and something salty. We picked up some flavorful salami that we laid out with the hard cheeses and dedicated an entire board to red and green grapes. To add an elegant touch, we threw in a few sprigs of thyme here and there to complete the look.
After all the hard work you put into making your cheese boards, you should take the time to enjoy and savor the tasting process. We kept it very casual and took the time to taste each individual cheese with the different wines selected. To make the tasting process more interactive, we suggest creating some scoresheet cards and rank which pairings tasted best together.
Our Thoughts on the Wines
Purple Moon, $3.99: Inspired by the purple hue surrounding the moon during a harvest. This Merlot had so much flavor, we would definitely pair this with some sort of heavier dinner option because of how flavorful it was, however, it did compliment the brie well.
Honey Moon, $5.99: A Viognier named after the June full moon. This was a full-bodied wine with more floral notes than fruit. Being slightly tart and a bit dry it paired best with the gruyere.
Moon x, $6.99: A juicy, super dense red wine inspired by the total blackness of a new moon. Loaded with intense flavors of blackberries, black cherry, and dark chocolate, it paired well with the savory salami and the cinnamon crusted asiago cheese.
Every part of this process, from picking out the ingredients to sitting down with friends and actually tasting the pairings, was filled with enjoyment. This is definitely a go-to gathering for those of you who want to step outside of the regular pumpkin and apple picking routine of fall and try something a little different. We will definitely be incorporating this into our fall bucket list and hope that it will become a yearly tradition among friends!
Photography by Centered Images
LOVE,
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