OFV more like WTF!!

The evening started out fantastic!  Sally and I made a delicious dish of “Shrimp Saganaki”.  This is a shrimp stew recipe we got from Food and Wine Magazine.  The blend of shrimp, dill, black olives, and feta cheese make for a truly unique dish.  We have made and enjoyed this dish before and paired with crusty bread and the right wine, this is really a meal to anticipate.

The only problem was … what wine to pair with it?  We have a friend, Tom who insists that seafood should always be paired with white wine, but we are partial to red wine (and are also somewhat stubborn).  In the past, we have found several red wines that pair well with seafood and Pinot Noir has always been the most adaptable.  So we searched through our wine cellar and pulled out an OFV 2009 Pinot Noir from Willamette Valley.  This estate grown wine is produced and bottled by Olsen Family Vineyards in Oregon.  Despite the screw top, (I know this is not in itself an issue) we were excited to try it with our dinner.

DISASTER AT THE TRATTORIA!!  I don’t know if it was the wine or the pairing but this was TERRIBLE.  The wine was completely inappropriate.  I was ready to give Tom credit and acknowledge that red wine could not pair with this dish until I tasted some $6 Tempranillo wine Sally had left over from earlier this afternoon and much to my surprise; it seemed to go well with the shrimp.  Since, Sally has a much better palate than I do, I asked her to try the Pinot Noir and she couldn’t get it past her nose.  She said it smelled terrible and she would not even try it!

We bought this wine for $20 from Total Wine and my recommendation is to ignore it and move on to another.  Well, I will try to finish the bottle with some chocolate which I have found will make any wine better!