You have been there.  We all buy them, those wonderful Girl Scout cookies from those adorable Girl Scouts. So they (the cookies, not the Girl Scouts) are sitting in the pantry, but when it actually comes time to eat them and you also want a glass of wine,  the trouble begins. Last night while watching the movie Gravity, I had some difficult decisions to make that made Sandra Bullock’s predicament seem almost comical by comparison.  Sure, she is about to simultaneously suffocate and explode in orbital blackness and microgravity, but as I sit with my glass of  2011 Estancia Central Coast Merlot, should I really try the Girl Scout Peanut Butter Sandwich cookies sitting on the end table next to me, or should I lunge for the Thin Mints that my wife Joan is worrying over like a lioness with her freshly killed gazelle.  That, my friends, is a tough choice.

Short answer, eat them all.  The sweetness of the peanut butter cookies works against the wine, but if you focus your palate on the nuttiness of the confection, suddenly it works!  In fact, it works much better than it should.  Maybe the grapes serve as the fruit in a peanut butter and jelly sandwich, only with more oak, tannins, etc.  Whatever.

Now for the mints.  I love the Thin Mint cookies, and at first I thought they beat the Peanut Butter Sandwich cookies as a pairing, but in further analysis, the mint flavor competed with the soft Estancia Merlot (which is really good, by the way) too much.  I wanted the Thin Mints to win because I like them so much, but to be fair, I have to give this one to the nuttiness of the sandwich cookies.  No matter though – Joan and I ate both boxes!  Problem solved.