How to pair your wine and cheese
This evening, Indulge: A Wine, Cheese and Chocolate Affair offers a chance to sample wines paired with artisan cheeses and chocolates. You can do the same at home. C.J. Bienert, who owns The Cheese Shop of Des Moines with his wife, Kari, suggests these pairings.
1. Fresh cheeses
C.J. Bienert said a fresh cheese ranges from cream cheese to a farmer’s cheese to fresh chevre. These are soft cheeses with bright, fresh, citrusy flavors.
Try: Milton Creamery Quark, made with local cow’s milk (but similar to a goat’s milk chevre).
Pair with: Pair light, fresh cheese with a similar wine. Bienert suggests Marlborough’s Spy Valley Sauvignon Blanc from New Zealand. “It has a nice grassy-ness and grapefruit-y taste that pairs well with a cheese with a slight tanginess,” he said.
2. Cooked curd cheeses
Cooked curd cheeses, such as Alpine cheeses and Gouda, are made by heating curds to a higher temperature and then pressing the cheese to create a firmer product, one that is still creamy on the inside, and sweet.
Try: Tarentaise cheese from Spring Brook Farms. This raw milk, semi-hard cooked curd cheese from Vermont is aged from five months to one year before consumption.
Pair with: Because of the fruity nature of the cheese, Bienert suggests pairing it with a German-style Riesling or a New World red wine to “cut through the creaminess and bring out the sweetness.” Try Mebmer’s Halbtrocken Riesling, a half-dry variety from Germany, or Madrigal Zinfandel from Napa Valley.
3. Blue cheeses
You buy blue cheese according to the level of intensity you want. Blue cheeses range from rich and creamy to the famously strong French bleu cheeses. They are salty, so Bienert suggests pairing them with a wine concentrated enough to complement the strong flavors, such as a dessert wine.
Try: Stilton Blue from Britain or Bayley Hazen from Jasper Hill Farm in Vermont. “Stilton blue is creamy and dry at the same time,” he said. “Its appearance and texture makes you think it will be very dry, but it’s sliceable.
“It just melts in your mouth.”
Pair with: Blue cheese has one of the strongest, most intense flavors of all cheeses. A very sweet, concentrated wine, like Noe Jerez sherry from Spain or Warre’s Gonzalez Byass, a port wine aged for 30 years, are perfect choices to balance the strong flavors of these cheeses.
Bill & Sheila’s Wine
Cheese Recipes with Bill & Sheila
_____________________________________________________________________
If you require a high quality printout of this article, just click on the printer symbol next to ’Share and enjoy’, and we will do the rest. This site is hosted by (click on the graphic for more information)
Return from wine to Home Page
If you want to increase your site popularity and gain thousands of visitors – check out these sites THEY ARE FREE. Spanishchef more than doubled its ‘New Visitors’ last month simply by signing up to these sites:
Follow spanishchef.net on TWITTER
