Junk Food Wine: Cereal Pt. 2
Did we time this for the school holidays? No. We never plan this stuff in connection with the calendar. But what a happy accident. Boatloads of nostalgia here, all the sweet cereals for special occasions - complete opposites of your everyday. And we've just gone and paired it to wine - something that no one asked for. Aren't we nice?
Frosties - Vermentino
A cereal that I had little to no experience with growing up, and by all accounts, it feels like Frosties are just Corn Flakes with buckets of sugar. I mean, still delicious, but needs some refreshment, and a classic thing to do in the wine pairing game is to balance it with the saltiest wine you can think of. Vermentino is a great option for salinity, and if it's grown on the limestone soils of the Watervale sub-region in the Clare Valley, it's just gonna be that much more saline. Enter KT - Kerri Thompson - and her Bianca Vermentino, grown by the Koerner family (a name you may be aware of) draws great inspiration from the island of Sardinia, where Vermentino is native to, made in a savoury and saline style perfect for seafood or in this case - Frosties. Sorry KT but it's pretty fun - we'll get some sardines next time!
Nutri-Grain - Grillo
While this cereal is consistently and aggressively marketed as the active person cereal - the iron man/woman cereal - there is no conceivable world where Nutri-Grain is healthy. It is delicious though! Nice rounded malty flavours, a little bit salty but plenty sweet, and would go well with a nice flinty style of wine - and Grillo is an extremely underrated example of that! Our mate Andy Coppard from Lino Ramble makes a ripper one out of the Vale that tastes like drinking out of an oyster shell. So bloody good it'll make you feel like doing a triathlon..?
Fruit Loops - Skinsy Chenin
I hate fruit loops. They're horrid. I do not get the hype. It's outrageous amounts of sugar, fake flavouring dusted with citric acid. Mouthwatering hey? Wrong - Awful. And in keeping with the tradition of drinking good wine with bad food, we're going skin contact. Australian natural wine legend and all-around beautiful human being James Erskine knows Chenin Blanc better than most in this country, and his expression from Blewitt Springs with a bit of skin is a dream. These wines never last long so if you see, get.
Coco Pops - Grenache
The crowd-pleaser. The fan favourite and Kelloggs know it because they always put multiple packets in the 'fun packs' - which we've bought a few for the purposes of this article. Friggin' delicious. Untouchable. I reckon it needs something jubey, bright and slightly chillable. Hitting two of our emails in one week is our buds Brad & Kendra at Camwell cause their Grenache is friggin unbelievable. Maybe even forgo the milk and just pour the wine in. I dare ya. Just like a Grenache milkshake only crunchy?
Milo - Pipe Dream
Just a little bit more decadent than coco pops but with that distinctly malty and 'strayan flavour of Milo. Milo cereal rules all. In my opinion, the champion sweet tooth cereal. Needs something decadent and debaucherous. Tried our Pipe Dream Nero D'avola yet? Maybe you should try it with some milo cereal. God this article is silly - if you can even call it an article.
Crunchy Nut - Aged Riesling
I remember when I was like 9 years old and I first had Crunchy Nut, I thought it was the most delicious healthy cereal id ever had in my life until Mum read the ingredients list and found out it's not healthy at all. Crunchy Nut never entered the house again. Still, damn tasty and needs some good rich style of white wine and we haven't delved into aged riesling. Pretty old-school but if you have it at the right time it can be pretty rockin' - around 8-10 years is a pretty good spot. Cant hold onto anything that long? Try to find some back vintage stuff from your favourite riesling producer, plenty of em do it - in our opinion, John Hughes out at Rieslingfreak does it better than most!