8/26/2023 0 Comments Trader joes humboldt fog cheese![]() Soooo.maybe Wine Enthusiast would have a different take on the 2014. So then I stumbled across this post on the Costco Wine Blog published in 2015, they compared the 20 vintages of A to Z Pinot Noir and found quite a few differences. My perennial question is whether reviews of a previous vintage can be extrapolated in ANY way to later vintages (the one I had is a 2014). Tannins are substantial, which may be a plus if you want to pair it with a burger." Truth is, I totally agree with "light, earthy and thin," but like in a GREAT way. On the one hand, Wine Enthusiast was really mean about the 2013 vintage: "Light, earthy and thin, this doesn't bring much in the way of either fruit or pleasure. What do smarter people say about it? Well, I don't have much for you, I'm sorry to say. Who's responsible for this? "Produced & Bottled by A to Z Wineworks"ĭo I need a corkscrew? No! Dunno why, but this baby is a screwtop. But it does NOT taste like pine needles and mud, which is the TRUE essence of Oregon, so I gotta disagree. What the Wine Idiot says: Incidentally, I grew up in Oregon, but I never drank a sip of wine until I moved to California. What the bottle says: "The Essence of Oregon." Which is where the wine comes in-it cleans everything off, and the flavors complement each other wonderfully. The cheese is creamy, light, and mildly acidic with a stronger flavor near the rind." It's soft and almost sticky, and it coats your mouth with delicious cheesy-ness. The bloomy mold and ash rind are edible but fairly tasteless. As the cheese matures, more of the originally crumbly core is converted to a soft-ripened texture. The cheese ripens starting with the bloomy mold exterior, resulting in a core of fresh goat cheese surrounded by a runny shell. If you've never had this divine cheese, I can't really explain it so here's Wikipedia: "Humboldt Fog is a mold-ripened cheese with a central line of edible white ash much like Morbier. This wasn't great with the brie, it was tasty with the Spanish cheeses, and it was UNBELIEVABLY FUCKING AWESOME with the Humboldt Fog. If I was going to describe this as tasting like any fruit, I would say it has a firm touch of unripe plum. ![]() And I gotta hand it to him, Patrick is totally right on this. Still tasted like plum, but with lots of mouth-puckering. But he fought back and said, "yeah, like a black plum that's not quite ripe." And instantly I flashed back to the last time I bought unripe black plums from Ralph's-I was upset because instead of crazy-sweet, dripping red flesh inside, it was crisp and tart. I asked Jon and Patrick what they thought Jon said "tart," and Patrick said "tastes like plum." At first I was like "oh noooooo, so wrong," because fruity is not what I would call the dominant element in this wine. It's a teensy-weensy bit mouth-puckering at the end, but in a good way. And the first quaff was smooth, light, and dry-just like I like pinot noir. Smells fruity almost but not super sweet, and surprisingly I couldn't smell alcohol. So this isn't one of those screaming hot deals on a brand-name wine, it's just convenient that you can now get this at TJ's. And, if memory serves, the price point is about the same that I paid at whatever wine store I got it from a few years back. The A to Z Pinot Noir had been recommended to me years ago by a coworker who takes his wine seriously (he even makes his own!), but I only recently started seeing it at Trader Joe's. Pinot noir seemed like a good compromise-not heavy, not sweet, with just enough kick to clean your palate with every sip. While I know conventional wisdom dictates a white to go with a cheese plate, they wanted a red. So they wanted to start with a cheese plate comprised of brie, Humboldt Fog, and my trusty 3-cheese Spanish cheese sampler from TJ's. My brother Patrick and his fiancé Jon were coming over for steak night, which is when they bring over filet mignon and I provide the wine and the grill and then we all eat on the coffee table like college students instead of at my very grown-up table that can expand to seat up to six. OK, so I splurged a little on a wine I already knew I liked. So my brother saw this at Starbucks and bought it for me and it was put together the next day because I do not mess around with Christmas.) See, I'm sort of a gingerbread house aficionado, and I also used to work at Starbucks-and once a partner, always a partner. (A quick note about the picture above: Yes, that is a Starbucks gingerbread store.
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