On a recent warmish evening, your Woodinville Wine Blog staff had dinner plans with a few friends. We’d agreed to meet at Carrie’s house to carpool into town, but traffic being what it is, we knew our friends wouldn’t all be arriving at the same time. We thought it would be nice to serve a small snack and a glass of wine outdoors while the early arrivals waited.
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Several of the ladies do not care for white wine, and we wanted to save our bottles of Rosé for a warmer, sunnier day. So, we risked experimenting by serving a local Woodinville red with our fresh caprese salad. We chose the Malbec we’d tasted recently from Damsel Cellars – we’d fallen in love with it and couldn’t wait to drink it and share it!
We nervously read up on pairing wine with Caprese Salad – the acidity in the tomatoes makes it a bit challenging. Initially everywhere we looked recommended Rosé, Sauvignon Blanc or Riesling. We read on further: Chowhound’s forum had mixed advice but several people recommended Sauvignon Blanc or Riesling; Guildsomm recommended Italian varietals we don’t have here in Washington; Natalie Maclean recommends Pinot Noir. We took courage from some recommendations to serve Chianti – while not Malbec, it has some similar qualities. And we trusted Malbec to pair well with the soft buffalo mozzarella cheese. So we went for it!
We picked up a bulk bag of buffalo mozzarella and a carton of tomatoes at Woodinville Costco, and picked fresh basil from Carrie’s patio herb garden. Slicing up the tomatoes, we did wish heirloom tomatoes were in season and available at Whole Foods instead, but until Carrie’s tomato garden bears fruit, we did the best we could.
We drizzled our best olive oil over the buffalo mozzarella after stacking it on the tomato slices, added Oliviers & Co balsamic vinegar on top of that, and finished with a generous grinding of black pepper and sprinkles of Falksalt Wild Garlic sea salt flakes. Last, we arranged one fresh basil leaf on each serving.
A freshly baked baguette (not pictured) was sliced and made available to guests as well, to tide them over until dinner.
Our friends are not wine snobs, and seemed to enjoy their snack, gobbling up all the caprese and the baguette to boot. We felt like the tomatoes didn’t weaken the wine, and the wine didn’t overpower the cheese nor clash with the balsamic vinegar.
The whole bottle of Malbec wine was gone by the time the last guest arrived, so we whisked her quietly into the car to our waiting restaurant, not mentioning the delicious Damsel Cellars wine she’d missed out on!
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