Seven wine expert George Kassianos offers advice on what cheese to pair with what wine
Mention a wine party to someone, and the first thing that tends to come to mind is “and cheese”. Wine and cheese both have an extremely long history – after all they were mentioned in the Odyssey!
Both wine and cheese are natural products, created using a standard process but with a myriad of results. And they tend to age well. Wine and cheese go together like tea and cookies, coffee and cake and beer and nuts. But just as a great cheese can make an average wine taste better, a poor cheese will make a spectacular bottle of wine a lot less satisfying.
How you pair wine and cheese is a personal decision, of course, but some combinations are naturally pleasing. Usually one drinks red wine with hard cheese, and white wine with soft cheese.
Conventional wisdom has it that tart, high acidity cheese like French goat cheeses, for example, go better with herbal, high acidity wines like un-oaked Sauvignon Blanc or even our Xynisteri grape wines, and high butter fat low acidity pair well with big buttery wines like New World Chardonnay’s. Also, cheeses and wines coming from the same region of the world are said to go well together, the culinary adage that “things that grow together, go together”, while big, young red wines high in harsh tannins supposedly have difficulty matching with any cheese, because of an unpleasant chalky aftertaste.
There are however, just too many exceptions to these guidelines to make them useful. Cheese is a living, breathing organism and any one cheese can give a range of results, depending upon its age and condition. To be sure if a wine and a cheese pair well, you have to try them.
In past tasting, we have also discovered that expensive and rare wines are unnecessary for great wine and cheese combinations. Only great cheeses are necessary. Wines, with a few exceptions, are simple, approachable and ready to drink.
If you want to seek out your own brilliant wine and cheese pairings, here is what you do:
l Invite a few of your family and friends, preferably those with some passion for wine and cheese.
l Go to your favourite Cheese Deli and purchase three or four of your favourite cheeses. Be sure to select artisan, handmade farm-style cheeses. If you are not sure, ask for advice.
l Follow a theme, for example all cow’s milk cheeses that share a certain cheddary quality but are distinctly different. Or choose contrasting cheese styles.
l Select two or three of your favourite wines – they too can follow a theme, for example Cabernets from California, Australia and Chile. Or choose a fruity white and a fruity red. As we mentioned earlier, we appreciate wine values – expensive rare wines are not necessary. Only good wines, not great ones, are needed to make heavenly matches with great cheeses.
l To awaken its flavour, remember to remove the cheese from the refrigerator one hour before serving.
l The pairings can be enjoyed by as few as two, or up to any number of guests that can comfortably fit around the dinner table. Encourage feedback, comments and discussion. Appoint somebody to take notes – you are going to want to remember which combinations made great matches and why.
l Get to know the wine and cheese in front of you. Offer a small piece of each cheese to your guests before tasting the wine. Savour the cheese smell and then taste each one.
l Pour some of each wine in separate goblets for your guests. Without tasting the wines, note the colour of each and its nose . Pleasurable aromas promise pleasant tastes to come.
l You are ready to begin tasting. Test one wine at a time against all cheeses. Try to be sensitive to new, pleasurable flavours that emerge from the combinations, particularly in the finish. Maybe you will hit one of those magical matches – when you do you’ll know it.
The Pairing
At our party, the first cheese was a soft French Brie. This particular Brie was not fully ripened therefore it allowed us to accommodate a medium body red like Tsangarides Mataro. A full-flavoured Chardonnay is also advisable or Champagne. But the Mataro has a rich berry flavour and a touch of sweet spice that all of us agreed was best for the cheese.
The second cheese was a classy Brie de Meaux, a more mature soft cheese. Personally I would have preferred a strong Chardonnay, a Zinfandel or vintage Champagne. We thought a bold Cabernet Sauvignon or Merlot might be also a good match for the savouriness inherent in the cheese. Theodoros Fikardo’s Maratheftiko was chosen.
Port Salut is smooth, delectable, creamy cheese made in the province of Brittany on the west coast of France. I thought initially of Chinon – red wines mainly Cabernet Breton from the town of Chinon in Loire Valley – as the perfect match. Yet the Tsangarides Cabernet Sauvignon is equally dry, and light to medium body, with its raspberry and cherry fruit and sweet wood finish and proved a good replacement to Chinon.
The Mascarpone (an Italian triple cream cheese usually low fat) and the Gorgonzola (famous blue cheese from Italy) Torte were a difficult and a challenging match. Gorgonzola had the upper hand in flavour. Fikardos Katerina had the necessary sugar and fruit to balance the sharp mouldy taste of Gorgonzola. A Dolcetto would have been a better combination especially for the mascarpone. However, the light effervescence of Katerina did just the trick.
Wensleydale and Cranberry is a clever combination of flavours. A creamy white cheese with a flaky open texture, fresh clean flavour and honeyed aftertaste. The fruity richness of pure sweet cranberries makes a superb dessert cheese that perfectly complemented Katerina as well. This medium sweet is a fine sipping white with aromas of peach blossoms, melon and honeysuckle but a light to medium body to balance the flaky texture..
Stinking Bishop is a sticky cheese with orange rind and a pungent and spirited aroma. The name is derived from a pear variety called Stinky Bishop. Pairing this cheese took thought as the smell was constantly interfering. A good Chateauneauf-du-Pape or a young Burgundian Pinot would have been nice. Equally, we wished we had the chance to try it with a sweet Muscat. ut the Fikardo’s oaked aged Cabernet Sauvignon Leonardo stood up to the test with its meaty and fatty texture.
Admirals has layers of Cheddar and Port (hence the pinky colour) with Stilton. The fact that there is port and Stilton cries out loud for a 10-year-old Tawny. However, there was none of it in Fikardos or Tsangarides cellars. Medium dry Valentina came to the rescue. In fact it was the surprise pairing of the evening. Even with Stilton. Valentina has appealing berry fruits with some caramelised cherries, crushed strawberries and a light sweetness. And with Stilton the Fikardos Shiraz was also enjoyable. Rich ripe fruit tending to meet in a medium to full body palate fences off the pungent aromas of Stilton, aided by its dark spice aromatics.
Finally Taleggio is a creamy semi-soft Italian cheese with a sharp taste. The young Fikardo’s Merlot seemed to be the right choice with its deep dark fruit flavours of cherry and plums, as well as the structure of the wine that balance out the fullness and full cream and fat of the cheese. A native Barbera red would also be a fine pair to this great cheese.
After having enjoyed these cheese and wine party we realized also that everyone had a great time and left the house wiser about cheese and wine. We can’t wait to do it again. So un-corcked your creativity with a cheese and wine party that suits you.
