Wine and Cheese 101

by Maggie Bernat Smith

Wine and cheese have shared a harmonious relationship for thousands of years, almost since the very invention of wine. They are soul mates, meant to be…you won’t find a 51% divorce rate here! Although wine and cheese understand how exactly they belong together, for us on the outside, looking in, the question of how to choose a certain cheese to pair with a certain wine can often make us dizzy.

As with food and wine pairing in general, there are rules, but rules are meant to be broken…everything has an exception. For instance, Cabernet Sauvignon traditionally pairs with Sharp Cheddar. However, this doesn’t mean that all Napa Valley Cabs or French Bordeaux taste the same from every producer and every vintage. At the same time, Brie will have many different possible tastes, depending on that particular Brie’s origins. Wine and cheese are living, changing products, which is why people all over the world are fascinated by these delicious partners.

But despite my “no rules” policy, there are general guidelines to use when you go shopping:

•White wines generally pair well with soft cheeses and stronger flavors
•Red wines pair best with hard cheeses and milder flavors
•Dessert wines match best with blue cheeses and pungent flavors
•Using these guidelines will help you get past the intimidation you might feel from wine and cheese pairing. You’ll also feel freer to experiment with different wines and cheeses. Both the wine and cheese together are supposed change each other’s tastes, thereby heightening both experiences. I recommend tasting the wine before the cheese, and then tasting them together so you can clearly notice the differences in both when they are paired.

To be even more specific:

•Sauvignon Blanc & Chenin Blanc: Try goat cheese (Chevre). The high acidity and mineral undertones of these wines from Loire Valley (and beyond) love the richness and earthiness of chevre.
•Chardonnay: Taste this with Brie, Camembert, Gouda, or Provolone. The full-bodied, rich Chardonnays work well with washed rind cow’s milk cheeses as well as many cow’s milk blue cheeses. The apple, pear, and citrus flavors of this grape usually meld with the acids found in goat’s milk cheeses as well.
•Champagne: In my opinion, champagne can pair with anything and everything! Its high acidity cuts through rich and creamy cheeses such as triple-cream Brie but also pairs perfectly with Edam and Gruyere.
•Pinot Noir: If you have a “stinky” wine then pair it with a stinky cheese! Pinot Noir from a region such as Burgundy is heavenly with Epoisses (pronounced ay-PWAHSS). Epoisses has a pungent flavor and washed rind, and comes as spoonable, silky paste. Spread onto a French baguette and enjoy!
•Merlot & Cabernet Sauvignon: These wines tend to favor cow’s milk cheeses. The high acids in goat cheese tend to clash with the tannins in these wines, making for an unmemorable experience. Try hard, aged cheeses such as Cheddar, Stilton, aged Gouda, Parmesan, or some milder blue cheeses.
•Port: Port with Stilton is one of my all-time favorite combinations. This sweet wine seems to cut through the creaminess and saltiness of the cheese and classifies this pairing as a rule-breaker in every sense of the word. For dessert wines, the more pungent cheese flavors pair best.

Cheese and wine should act as a symphony playing in unison—delicate cheeses go with lighter wines, strong cheeses with more powerful wines. Experimentation is key. Try multiple cheeses with multiple wines and see what you like best.

Dessert wines for Valentines Day!

by Maggie Bernat Smith

If you seek pleasure in life and wine; then you should not miss out on dessert wine. This red-headed step child of the wine world rarely gets the attention it deserves anymore. Once the wine of kings is now rarely indulged by us. Valentines day is the perfect time of year to get reacquainted with this lost soul of the wine world. This Valentines day why don’t you skip the heart shaped box of chocolates and pour some tawny port over some ice cream (or whatever your delight). Lose the over-priced roses that are predicted, expected and show the utmost unoriginality and go for a bottle of Eiswein and serve it with some Humboldt fog blue cheese instead.

Dessert wines are deliciously high in alcohol, and high in sugar content. They are heavenly on their own but really shine when paired with cheeses or desserts. Although the common misconception is that they are cloyingly sugary sweet, the fact is the high acidity in these wines is what makes them glide across the palate, make your mouth water and crave sip after sip. Here’s just a few examples to entice your palate:

• Moscato d’Asti - Moscato d'Asti is a unique wine where the beautiful aromas of the grapes are enhanced by a crisp, nice acidity, a light fizziness and the sweetness of the natural residual sugar. The low alcohol content makes it a very easy, pleasant wine perfect to finish a meal with dessert, or alone as a nice mid-day break.


• Eiswein or Ice Wine - A German term meaning "ice wine," referring to a rich, flavorful dessert wine. Eiswein is made by picking grapes that are frozen on the vine and then pressing them before they thaw. Because much of the water in the grapes is frozen, the resulting juice is concentrated-rich in flavor and high in sugar and acidity The resulting wines have tropical fruit, peach or berry overtones. Older eisweins suggest caramel or honey


• Tawny Port - Tawny Port is a sweet or medium-dry dessert wine made from red grapes grown in Northern Portugal’s Douro Valley, fortified with grape neutral spirit (brandy) and aged in wood casks. Prolonged wood aging is the key ingredient that differentiates Tawny Port from Ruby Portt. It is vital to start out with excellent grapes in order to withstand the rigors of extended wood-aging, maintaining fruit flavors and supple structure. As a Tawny Port oxidizes in cask, the color of the wine slowly evolves from a purplish-ruby color to a lighter topaz-amber-brown. With this process you can expect this dessert wine to taste like pecan pie, roasted nuts, toffee and raisins.
  
  These are just a few examples of what to expect in dessert wines. They truly are a practice in decadence. The Noble Grape is having a sale this weekend, Friday through Monday, for Valentines day. Stop in, the knowledgeable staff there can answer any questions you have. Dessert wines come in all colors and flavors, depending on your fancy, it guarantees a good time!

Left Bank Bordeaux

by Maggie Bernat Smith

There’s not a lot of easy lessons about French wine, their labels are confusing and who knows what you are taking home to drink that night. Here’s the “easy button” for French wines.

• Red wine from Burgundy is Pinot Noir, the white is Chardonay



• Red wine from Bordeaux will be a Cabernet or Merlot dominated blend, the white is a Sauvignon Blanc blend



• Red wine from the Rhone valley will be Syrah or Grenache based. Their white wine is Viognier



• Languedoc is no rules, anything goes, but most times they will label which grape type you’re drinking

This is just the basic of the basics of French wine, there’s a multitude more to learn about each village, soil type, where the vineyards are located, who is making the wine, and you can just keep going. We are going to just focus on the left bank of Bordeaux today.

When a red wine is labeled Bordeaux, this means it’s a blend dominated by Cabernet Sauvignon, Merlot and possibly seasoned with some Cabernet Franc, Petit Verdot or Malbec. The grapes can come from anywhere in the entire Bordeaux Region and can range from disappointing quaffs to great bargains so unless you know the reputations of the thousands of producers, then you just have to taste your way through them (or go to a small reputable wine shop who knows their wines). If you see Bordeaux Superieur on the bottle this means that the wine needs a minimum of .5% more alcohol which can translate to a fuller bodied style and they generally will use better plots of land with older vines to make a wine with more complexity then just your basic Bordeaux. A traditional basic Bordeaux will have characteristics such as red fruit, black currant, pencil lead and should be a soft easy-drinking wine. Great with warm weather braised dishes. If you are interested in these basic Bordeaux check out a wine shop like The Noble Grape, they have a great selection of these value wines.

Now when you hear about the Bordeaux wines that are the greatest wines created on earth, there are just a handful of producers and communes within Bordeaux that they are talking about. On the northwest part of the Gironde River running through the heart of Bordeaux is the Haut Medoc, within this region are communes (basically small geographical areas) that produce most of the First Growths (the best of Bordeaux wines). Here they are, you may have heard some of these names on Frazier over the years:

Chateau Margaux
Chateau Lafite-Rothschild
Chateau Latour
Chateau Haut-Brion
Chateau Mouton-Rothschild

These are the prized, most expensive, rarest wines of the world. If you don’t have several thousand dollars to drop on these wines that don’t reach their full potential for a couple of decades -- the key is to seek out the great second growths that have over the years proved themselves worthy of First Growth status but it’s just too hard to change laws in France so we call them Super Seconds. Although these wines generally start in the low hundreds, they are worth every penny. Some of the names that make this list are:

Chateau Leoville-Las-Cases
Chateau Leoville-Barton
Chateau Pichon-Longueville-Baron
Chateau Cos d'Estournel
Chateau Montrose
Chateau Palmer (although actually a third growth but it is so well respected that it is included on this list)

This is just a basic Bordeaux lesson that covers the Left Bank of the Gironde River. We will do another to provide you with a Right Bank lesson. Too much information can overwhelm when you are trying to learn about French wine. If you want to partake in the splendor of these great wines then go to Binny’s. They have a reserve room under lock and key for these wines. I recommend asking for a manager to really guide you through these at the time of purchase or just email me, I can help you sort through the magnificence in these bottles.