Brynna and I have been doing a lot of our wine and music pairings with Arizona wines but now that we’re in the grand state of Washington, we’ve decided to expand some of our pairings. We’ll be pairing the wines made here with music, of course, but also wines that are easily available to more people so that those of you on the east coast and elsewhere can join in our experimental pairings. I’ll be taking this first pairing with the new plan solo.
Bargain bin wine can always be a gamble. I’ve never been one to pick up a bottle for under five dollars and expect it to be anything worth while. Still, I found a mislabeled Trapiche Malbec from Argentina for $4.44 in a bargain bin and finally decided “why the hell not?”
Pairing the wine with music proved to be a little easier than expected. Maybe because the Malbec wasn’t really all that expressive. Food is necessary with this wine since it’s not all that enjoyable by itself. Pizza is recommended. So, without further ado, here is the album that I paired with the Trapiche 2012 Malbec.
Pairing with Bright Eye’s Lifted…
It’s not a surprise that I was little concerned about pairing a less than five dollar bottle of wine with music. Mostly because I thought it would take forever or that I’d have to pair it with an album I didn’t really like. Fortunately, this wasn’t the case.
Upon first smelling the wine I was pleasantly surprised at the nose. There was a nice mix of blackberries, fresh grass and other Spring-like scents along with tobacco and vanilla. The taste was a different story. It was actually weak and disappointing compared to the nose. The vanilla came through on the taste but the taste of alcohol seemed to wash everything else away leaving the overall taste of the wine thin and quickly dissipating. Once I started eating my pizza with the wine, it got much better. That heavy alcohol taste cut through the grease and made the wine much more pleasant and easier to pair to music.
After a few more bites of pizza and sips of the Malbec, I knew which album would be perfect for this wine. Bright Eye’s Lifted or the Story is in the Soil, Keep Your Ear to the Ground,
The wine was rich in nose and thin in taste and Bright Eye’s, Lifted…, has a much similar quality to it musically which is one thing I’ve always enjoyed about the album. There are points in Lifted… where the music is recorded through room mics and other times when the instruments and vocals are recorded with mics oriented much closer to their subjects. So what you end up with is a highly produced sound at points and a raw, slightly spacey sound at other points.
This was just like the wine. There was a rich nose that felt very well done but there was empty space in the thin taste of the wine just like the space picked up in the room mics of the songs in Lifted…
“You Will. You? Will. You? Will. You? Will.” is the perfect example of this. The beginning of the song is recorded only with room mics. Slowly the song’s production moves from the room mics to mics closer in proximity. The result is a raw spacious sound at the start and highly produced sound at the end. Just like the taste and the nose play on the 2012 Trapiche Malbec. Just remember the pizza if you try this pairing yourself… 🙂
Notes:
Nose blackberries, wet, new grass, spring-like, tabacco, vanilla
Taste: weak compared to nose, thin, vanilla comes through
Really good with pizza. Needs food.
Alcohol cuts through grease of pizza well