Girls' Wine and Food Tasting Night

A couple weeks ago my friend Kristy Bernardo of the delicious blog The Wicked Noodle hosted a wine and food evening sponsored by Don Sebastiani & Sons. It was a girls-only night, which is always fun, but this was especially great because I got to meet some truly funny and friendly gals, plus we all had an assignment to make a dish to complement one of the six wines we would taste that evening.

Kristy and I are both posting about the party today, and you’ll find all of the recipes on her website, so make sure you visit both sites for the full experience.

So we started the evening with Prosecco, which wasn’t on the official tasting list, but a little Prosecco never hurt anything, right?

Then the official tasting started with appetizers: Smoking Loon California Sweet Red Wine paired with honey Dijon bacon, dates stuffed with gorgonzola, and goat cheese and crackers with homemade plum jam (minus the ginger in that recipe).

The salad course was a simple and elegant spinach and prosciutto salad with truffle oil paired with Pepperwood Grove Pinot Noir.

This smoky bean soup was paired with The Crusher Clarksburg Petite Sirah.

We followed that up with a simple tortilla pizzetta topped with smoky mozzarella, kalamata olives, and sun-dried tomatoes, and paired it with Project Paso Paso Robles Red Blend. (By this time we were already getting full, and we still had two course to go!)

The main course was the steak and wild rice wrap with shredded cabbage, paired with the B Side Napa Valley Cabernet Sauvignon. But wait, there’s more!

We followed that with this silky mushroom flan and the Aquinas Napa Valley Barrel Fermented Chardonnay.

Are we done yet? No, there’s still dessert! Kristy made these cute chocolate spoons.

And by then, we were in a food and wine coma. The evening was so much fun, we had a blast. It’s always interesting to try new wines and enjoy good food that’s paired with them. Thanks to Kristy for being such a fabulous host and to Don Sebastiani & Sons for sharing the wines and recipes.