Wine Dinner - Parallel, Ashburn, Virginia

Parallel menu

I went to Parallel, a wine bar, bistro in Ashburn, Virginia with my mom, a family friend, the little girl I babysit and another family friend. Here's me and my mom and our favorite French Kiss wine!

Me and my mom with French Kiss bottle

 It was so fun, I love this place. It's brand new in my hometown and I've been there once before and they have a great selection of wines and AMAZING appetizers!We basically just ordered white wines!

The Wine List

Parallel is separated into a little bar sitting area where we sat, and there's a restaurant area where you can sit down and eat dinner or lunch! You can order food as well where we sat in the bar area.

Parallel's sign

I was the hefty one of the group who tried three different wines, the French Kiss, the Ca'Lunghetta Pinot Gringio, and the Kiona Riesling. My mom and her friend had the French Kiss twice, and our other friend was the only one who got red wine and she got the Pinot Noir! I didn't try it, but its scent was veeeery alcohol-y smelling to me, so I had assumed it'd have a very hot finish so I neglected to try it because red wines are not my favorite (and I was really enjoying/was very occupied with my other 3 glasses!) We ordered steak sliders, arancini, which is fried rice and cheese balls, and tomato and olive bruschetta with our wines!

Our food!

Here is our beautiful bountiful spread! It was absolutely delicious, and we ended up ordering actually 4 more sliders! (The kids cups are chocolate milk not wine I promise.) I have initial notes on everything and then further notes on how it tasted and smelled with the food!

I had the French Kiss first!

French Kiss glass

French Kiss bottle

French Kiss
smells: honey sweet apple
tastes: apple crisp refreshing honey....pears?
with arancini: sweeter smoother more apples
I loved this wine, I've had it before and I will continue to drink it! It's a really light sweet wine especially for girlier wine drinkers who don't want that really "wine-y" taste and are looking for a lighter juicier flavor!

Pinot Grigio

Pinot Grigio
smells: melon, honey
tastes: melon and pears, so crisp and light
with steak sliders: extra melon-y, I can really tell it's melon and it had a great smooth finish
I also really liked this wine, considering how cheap it was I thought it wouldn't be as good but it was great! It had a really nice fruity bouquet, with a hint of honey. Upon tasting, I really liked how you could tell that it was melon, as I always say I think everything is apples, and this time I didn't think there was any chance of apples in it, it had such a distinct melon taste! I loved it with the food!

Riesling

Riesling
smells: slightly peppery with a fruity finish (pears?)
tastes: slightly sweet with an acidic peppery finish, pears and melons? maybe honey?
with bruschetta: olives over take palette a little, but finish was nicer
This wine was a great Riesling in that I usually don't like how dry Rieslings can be and for how dry this one was I really liked it! It was slightly peppery and it made my nose tingle a little bit but I liked that! Like I said in my original notes, the olives in the bruschetta over took my palette a little for the wine but it did make the finish a little nicer and a little less peppery and more smooth! I still liked this wine a lot!


I loved doing this and it was a lot of fun! I hope to be able to go back again and maybe do a more serious pairing where they give you food with the wines you try, we more so just tried wines and then picked whatever appetizers we wanted to try with the wines! But it was a lot of fun and I really enjoyed trying these new wines and being able to try them with my mom as well!