I go to a lot of game nights in my neighborhood (yes, I am a nerd). When I say game night, I mean anything from Bunco (dice game) to group party games like Taboo, Battle of the Sexes, or Wits and Wagers, to full on strategy games like Pandemic, Dominion, Fluxx, or Dead of Winter. And I realized yesterday that the wine I choose varies with the kind of game night I am going to or hosting. If it is a ladies Bunco night, I always bring a light bodied white wine. If it is likely to be a strategy game I always reach for a red. I realized this a few nights ago when I committed the cardinal sin of pouring a glass of white wine during a game of Mansions of Madness, a strategy game and one of my personal favorites. Like I said, I am a nerd. There was nothing wrong with the wine, it was one of my staple Chardonnays, but it was still just all wrong. And that mistake totally threw off everything. I couldn't concentrate on what I should be doing. Should my character explore the ballroom, try to open up another wing of the mansion (the board), or maybe head toward that item card in the hallway. I didn't know because I poured the wrong wine! Oh, the horror! Okay, okay I have a grip on myself now. But seriously, it did throw me off and prompted me to question whether wine pairing should extend to more than just food. I recently talked about pairing a Rosé with yard work. It sounds funny, but maybe I am on to something.
Back to game night. A few nights prior, I had a ladies bunco evening. Ladies and dice. Enough said. But this was a strategy game, or at least a game that require more thought than luck. After determining that I had thrown off the balance of the universe by drinking light bodied white wine with a strategy game, I decided to fix my mistake. I reached for an Oregon Pinot Noir, and all was right in the cosmos again (you know, except for that time when the moon completely blocked out the sun in the middle of the day in certain parts of the United States). I poured myself a glass of 2013 Rainstorm Pinot Noir and it delivered. All rational thought returned, and I completely outwitted my friends and won the game instantly. Just kidding, that didn't happen. But Rainstorm Pinot Noir seemed to fit much better with the evening.
If you enjoy Pinot Noir, you should definitely try this wine. It reminds me of a lot of village Burgundy reds but at a much nicer price. Rainstorm makes a blend of pinot noir grapes from two different regions in Oregon. Willamette Valley (the one everyone has heard of) toward the North, and Umpqua Valley in the south. This magical blend of pinot noir grapes is great on the nose and makes for a nice light bodied red. It smells very pinoey (sorry but it does!) with some cherry, earth, and leather. The taste is light with some mild tannins, cherry, pomegranate (I love pomegranate juice!), and earth.
My take away from all of this is to be more careful when choosing a wine for a particular kind of evening. For a while there, it totally threw everything out of balance (I am not saying I caused the solar eclipse, but....). More importantly, I hightly recommend 2013 Rainstorm Pinot Noir!
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