I am a cheese lover, the smellier the better, I love the mouth feel, the flavour and the contrast of the soft cheese with a crisp, salty cracker. It reminds me of dinner parties and pub lunches, sunny day picnics and a Christmas Day feast.
This week we took part in an activity that was right up my street, cheese and wine tasting. Cheese and wine are a match made in heaven; they complement each other so well. 
We convened in the Sky Bar, the perfect setting for such an event. We were each given a card to note our scores and opinions. The cheeses were lovely, we tasted them one by one and shared our thoughts. It was interesting to note that the older generation preferred the smellier blue cheeses whereas the team members who are somewhat younger than we are really didn’t seem to like them at all. Maybe they are an acquired taste.
In total we tasted 8 varieties of cheese and sampled an assortment of wines. While we ate, we listened intently to Emily who gave us a bit of background information for each cheese. It was so interesting to hear about the origin of each cheese. The activity was extremely well researched and both fascinating and informative. For example, did you know that the renowned writer, Defoe, mentioned the town of Stilton and its famous cheese in his travel memoirs written in 1724. 
The wines were expertly selected to pair with the cheese; it was quite an eye opener for many of us how certain wines enhance the flavours of the cheeses so perfectly.
One of our fellow residents, Brenda was once the member of a wine circle, she has a wealth of knowledge on the subject, it was such a joy to hear her speak so confidently on the subject. 
Once we were full of cheese, biscuits and wine we sat back and enjoyed a quiz, testing our newly gained cheese and wine knowledge. I did quite well even after all the wine.
Lifestyle Co Ordinator Emily told us “It was fantastic seeing so many of our residents engaged and discussing the flavours they could taste. We captured some great reactions to the cheeses that were not so popular, and it was all round a great, funny and educational afternoon”