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| Menu |
The Blue Apron is an excellent restaurant in downtown Salem, VA. My parents and I attended a Saturday lunch service. The lunch menu is the same as the dinner one, but with smaller portions. Parking is complicated with this area, many one hour or two hour parallel spots, confusing lots that are all reserved spaces for businesses you're not going to, so take care if you're looking to visit this eatery.
We asked the waitress to pick our wines after we had selected our dishes. She was very accommodating and left all the bottles on the table for me to take pictures for this blog. We were even given free tastings of two dessert wines just for being the class.
The food was ridiculously amazing, not even taking any wine into account.
http://blueapronredrooster.com/
PAIRING 1
Carmenere Ventisquero Reserva 2012, from Colchagua Valley Chile
with Grilled Black Angus Ribeye, herb & duck fat fries, steak sauce
field greens with parmigiana vinaigrette
Smell: Very very deep aromas. Just a hint of a bite, much less than
many reds
Taste
without food: The bite smelled becomes far more prevalent
when tasting than when smelling. Quite a good after taste, lasting
after taste as well. Not sweet.
Taste
with food: This paired brilliantly. The bite completely
disappeared after eating the steak. The base flavors are still
not to my taste, but even I can tell that this was very well
chosen. It was made infinite more drinkable with the food.
PAIRING 2
2011 Vourvray from Chateau de Valmer in France
with Lightly seared scallops, white wine-braised artichokes, baby
carrots, potato puree & charred onions
Smell: Very light and refreshing. Mild citrus notes with a hint of sweet melon.
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| Bonus Mom |
Taste without food: Acidic start with a creamier finish. Quite a light taste with a midpallet tang that fades very quickly.
Taste with food: The tang goes well with the light sweet scallops. The taste of the wine isn't changed noticeably with the introduction of food. The flavors go well one after the other but don't mesh with or mold one another.
Side note: My bonus mother has volunteered to be anyone elses "mom" if they want to get points by getting dinner and drinking wine. She is very talented at both of these activities.
PAIRING 3
Lenore 2011 Columbian Valley Syrah by the Corvidae Wine Company in Washington
with Jumbo Shrimp poatched in saffron tomato and chroizo broth, creamy white grits, sweet peppers
Smell: Very very strong scent, but rather nice. Kick of what could by identified as sweet coffee, with a sort of syrupy sweet cooking spice.
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| Mother |
Taste
without food: Light first taste followed by being punched in the mouth. Extreemly powerful. Not pleasant in the least, that was a sensory shock along the lines of a shot of 151.
Taste
with food: Food can't tame this. It's still like getting slapped in face
. I tried it with the creamy shrimp and grits, the spicey chorizo sausage, and with the steak. Nothing helped. I wouldn't drink this if you paid me. BUT I'm in the minority. It was the favorite wine of every other person at the table, with or without food.
PAIRING 4
Montinore Estate Pinot Gris 2012, from Willamette Valley Oregon
with lunch special: Herb roasted chicken, roasted gold yukon
potatoes and turnips
Smell: rather deep and complex for a white. Instead of
being mostly acid it was quite fragrant, floral with bits of honey.
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| Father |
Taste
without food: Quite good with a very interesting finish.
Just like the smell this is a deeper flavor profile than other
whites I've had. There's a very small bite coming though
that wasn't there with the smell. Just a bit a of citrus.
Taste
with food: Not sure this actually goes well with the creamy herb sauce on the chicken. The creamy butteryness of the chicken is slightly at odds with the light and crisp of the wine, especially with the herbs in the sauce. Both are still good, they do not clash but neither are made better by the other.
This was my favorite wine at the table so I tried it with the steak and it went fabulously. The bite of the wine was completely erased with the fat and flavors of the steak leaving a quite delightful sweet refreshing taste.
DESSERT WINES
The people at the Blue Apron were nice enough to give us samples of a sherry and a port dessert wine for free at the end of the meal because I was enrolled in this class.
Sherry
Oxford 1970 Pedro Ximenz
Almost syrupy consistency, you can see it cling to the sides of the glass. Color is a dark thick brown caramel. Smells quite strongly of alcohol and syrup. Tastes just like a dark molassus cookie, but with an alcoholic kick (17%). Absolutely delicious, but very rich. This would be excellent on ice cream.
Port
Quinta do Infantado
Cherry red in color, no where near as think as the sherry. Smells more like wine than the sherry as well but still with that alcohol burn. Drinking this is like drinking a shot. In fact it's 19.5% so that was a shot. I couldn't detect anything much passed the alcohol burn. There wasn't anything bad certainly but any real flavors were lost in the heat.
and finally my mother is a lightweight so here's a picture of her completely drunk off of maybe two glasses of wine total.
