It's National Wine and Cheese Day!
/But then again, isn’t every day a wine and cheese day?
In my classes, I often use cheese to illustrate basic points about how and why certain wines match particularly well with individual dishes. Wine is a complex substance, and many food dishes are a complex blend of elements as well, but the basics still apply. Here are three of these basics to consider:
Acidity in food pairs extremely well with acidity in wine - they bring each other into balance.
Fat in food also pairs with acid in wine for a different reason - rather than matching up, acid cuts through fat, making the food seem less fatty and more palatable. You could also take the reverse approach and say that fat in food helps moderate acid in wine. Either way, it’s a question of balance.
Salt in food has several effects on wine components - salt helps reduce our perception of bitterness, so it makes wine seem less tannic; salt in food also reduces our perception of sweetness in wine (or in food for that matter), so a salty dish will help balance a sweet wine. And, salt in food reduces our perception of acid in wine with the net effect of the wine seeming to be fruitier and a little fuller in body (this is why one of the greatest of all wine/food pairings is Champagne with french fries but that’s a post for another day!)
All of these food elements — salt, fat and acid — are present to varying degrees in cheese, so a wine with vibrant acidity will be a good companion to fattier cheeses. Acidic wines will also go well with some cheeses with notable acidity, like goat cheese which can be quite tart. Many cheeses have noticeable salt content, and these can also go well with tannic wines because they will help reduce our perception of the bitter tannins. And sweet wines are also good matches for saltier cheeses, like Sauternes with Roquefort cheese or Port with Stilton. Even a wine that is just off-dry (or, very slightly sweet) like the sylvaner in the picture with a chunk of Stilton (from England’s great Colston-Basset Dairy) and a piece of Vermont cheddar shows the magical synergy of sweet and salty.
In my experience, there are few cheeses and wines that don’t go harmoniously together but there are some combinations that are particularly good, so for National Cheese and Wine Day, here are some of my favorite pairings to try:
Franciacorta, the classic traditional method sparkling wine from the Italian province of lombardy, produced by the leading house of ricci curbastro (Photo: ©Lyn Farmer)
Traditional method sparkling wines like Champagne and Franciacorta from northern Italy are great matches for many types of cheese. In the photo, I’ve paired three different Franciacorta wines (a Brut non-vintage, a vintage brut and a rosé) with several kinds of cheese including Gorgonzola and Taleggio that come from the Franciacorta region in Lombardy plus an American goat cheese called Humboldt Fog and a French Camembert. The bubbles keep the palate fresh, and the crisp acidity of the wines is tempered by the saltiness of some of the cheeses and cuts through the fat in all of them.
Alsatian Riesling with practically anything: riesling in Alsace is generally medium-bodied with ripe citrus flavors and good acidity. They tend not to be as sweet as many German rieslings (though riesling in Germany is getting drier, especially with a warming climate that promotes greater ripeness levels. I love Alsatian riesling with older cheeses like cave-aged comté or young but pungent soft-ripened cheeses such as Münster that also comes from Alsace.
Sauvignon Blanc is classically paired with goat cheese and that follows the axiom that “what grows together, goes together.” The best goat cheese in France comes from the eastern Loire Valley that also produces the world’s greatest sauvignon blanc, Sancerre. The same elements apply though to sauvignon blanc from New Zealand or Chile and goat cheese from Spain or the U.S. (like the Humboldt Fog noted above). Sauvignon blanc has herbaceous, grassy flavors and high acidity, elements that go so well with creamy, slightly vegetal goat cheese, the best of which from the town of Chavignole very close to Sancerre. It’s a win-win!
By now you are probably wondering where the red wine is and I’ll confess, I like white wine with cheese more than most reds. Many people automatically thing cheese must go with red wine because they end of having cheese either just before, or in place of, dessert. Since red wines usually are served with main courses, that is the wine left on the table when the cheese is served, but it isn’t always the best option. Tannic and powerfully flavored reds can be a less than perfect match for many cheeses, but if you are dying to have red wine with your cheese, go for it - have the wine you love with the food you love and most of the time, you’ll be happy.
For my cheese pairings, I like fruitier reds with low tannin and high acidity so I often turn to Beaujolais, a terribly misunderstood and unjustly maligned wine from the area just south of Burgundy. Good Beaujolais (and I promise I’ll do a post on this soon) is wonderful with semi-soft and firm cheeses - think Comté, Beaufort, Gruyère and Manchego. Pinot noir works well with these cheeses too, and for the same reasons.
There is a world of cheese out there, and of course a world of wine as well, so two parting ideas: you will seldom go wrong pairing a wine with a cheese from the same region. And, remember to follow one of the basics of pairing wine with all foods - match flavor intensities. A delicate and fresh young cheese will want a wine lighter in flavor intensity and body. An intensely flavored blue cheese, a cave-aged Gruyère, a robust (and wonderfully stinky) Reblochon or Epoisse will be best suited to something fuller bodied and richer in flavor, like a medium-bodied red wine or a richer white like an older Burgundy or a New World chardonnay. Just remember with chardonnay that the super-ripe style favored by some comes from very ripe grapes, and the riper a grape gets the lower its acidity. I find very ripe chardonnay (Rombauer is a good example from California’s Carneros AVA) are full of flavor but don’t have enough acidity to stand up to dry and strongly flavored cheeses like Gruyère, Manchego and Parmigiano.
Okay, with that, I’m in desperate need of a glass of wine (I have an Alsatian riesling handy) and some of the cheese I’ve been stashing just for a day like this. Let me know in the comments section what you ended up pairing this week. Cheers!