So I did this wine and cheese pairing at home, with only myself. I started out with the Sweet Apple Gallo Family wine paired with Cranberry Cheddar cheese. It definitely smelled like apple, though I thought it smelled more sour than sweet. It tasted like sweet green apples, a bit airy, but I enjoyed it. It was a $3.98 wine, that was pretty good. But it did not pair well with the cheese. The cheese brought out this bold bite, removed the smoothness of the wine and I couldn't really taste the nice apple. Very overpowering and not very good in my opinion. Also, to my surprise, the cheese was really good though it had cranberry in it.
Next, I paired a Tisdale Pinot Noir with Roth Havarti cheese. This cheese was also really good, but the wine not so much. It smelled terrible from the beginning. I simply thought it tasted like overpowering alcohol. Surprising enough, I got some blackberry in the flavor, though the alcohol still powered over much of it. It wasn't very smooth, though it was a $4.04 wine. Pairing it with the cheese simply removed every sign of blackberry and brought out underlying layers of alcohol and tannins. Not very pleasant.
I did have to improvise with this cheese, but I thought it went well despite that. The wine was another $3.98 wine. Gallo Family Sweet Strawberry paired with Sargento Colby-Pepper Jack cheese. The wine smelled like sweet summer to me. I don't know how else to put it, but it reminded me more of summer than of strawberries. I wouldn't necessarily jump and say it tasted like strawberries but more like those strawberry candies that are hard on the outside and soft on the inside. It tasted like that hard shell, and it was also sweet and sugary. I liked it, and this one actually paired well. It brought out a bolder layer that was previously covered by the strawberry. Made it more complex.
Really I was surprised by what the pairings with cheese did to the different wines. It really changed the flavor and made underlying parts much bolder.
