Dinner: An Early Easter Celebration

For my first dinner post, I decided to use my family's early Easter dinner as my subject. Every Easter (and every other holiday really), we have very traditional meals. Easter dinner always includes roasted lamb with mint jelly, and a plethora of side dishes. This Easter our side dishes included yeast rolls, spinach au gratin, brussel sprouts, deviled eggs, roasted potatoes, and sunshine salad (pineapple jello with carrots in it, very delicious). Given this wide variety of food, I felt like we should sample a wide variety of wine. We only had reds on hand, so the variety was not as large as I had hoped. We used a shiraz, a merlot, and a cabernet sauvignon. I should start by saying I really do not prefer any of these wines to begin with, so I did not have high hopes for the pairing. My aunt and my mom do prefer these wines, so they had better input about the pairings.

McWilliams Shiraz, 2012

The shiraz we used was a McWilliams wine, from vintage 2012. On the back of the bottle, it was suggested that this wine be drunk with roast lamb, so we had high expectations for the combination we were about to experience. We were very disappointed. The lamb had a nice flavor, but it made the wine incredibly bitter. This wine definitely tasted better with our starchy dishes, like the rolls and potatoes. The wine with the sunshine salad was absolutely vile. It made the jello sour, and the wine extremely bitter. Overall we were not impressed with how this wine paired with our dinner.

Sterling Merlot, 2012

For our next wine, we used a Sterling Merlot, vintage 2012. By itself this wine is fairly tannic, and I was not a huge fan. The suggested pairing on the back of this wine was hearty pasta, but we had hope for the lamb. I was not a fan of this combination at all. The wine became so incredibly tannic with the lamb, I couldn't finish the glass. My mom and my aunt did not like this combination either. They couldn't put their finger on what was off, but something just didn't taste good. As with the shiraz, the merlot tasted a little better with our starchy side dishes, probably because they didn't have many contrasting flavors.

The last wine we tried with dinner was a Sterling Cabernet Sauvignon, from vintage 2012. Normally, my mom really likes this wine. She did not like it with dinner. I thought the lamb made this wine quite bitter, just like the others.

Sterling Cabernet Sauvignon, 2012

The lamb may have been spiced with something incompatible with these wines, because we did not like any of them with the lamb. The cabernet was a little bit better with the spinach, and with the rolls it was just plain. 

Overall we were not impressed with any of these wines. Perhaps it was the way the lamb was cooked, or maybe it was the combination of the foods. I am hoping to try this dinner again with the correct wines sometime in the future.

The family enjoying Easter Dinner