With the pandemic reviving home entertainment, cheese and wine parties are back in vogue. So, Good Cheese decided to revisit and explore this classic combination. PATRICK McGUIGAN assembled a team of experts to taste their way through some of their favourite contemporary matches. Photography by Sean Calitz
The finest of pairs IT’S A MATCH that has stood the test of time, enjoyed by the Romans, Medieval lords and 1980s dinner party guests. And when the pandemic hit and lockdowns were introduced, people hit the bottle and cheeseboard in a big way. With cheese and wine parties fashionable again, it made sense to take another look at how the two can work together – beyond the obvious established matches. The tasting session started with a discussion about what makes the perfect pairing, and there were some surprising views. “I’ve only had a handful of cheese and wine pairings in my life that have been outstanding,” admits cheese consultant Emma 18
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Young. “It’s harder than you think to get the perfect match. “There are basic rules. Making sure there are similar levels of intensity is a good idea. So, a powerful Barolo with a fresh goats’ cheese is probably not going to work, but a sweet wine with lots of acidity and fruit flavours will work with a fruity, boozy blue. It’s about matching complex with complex and simple with simple.” Cheese and wine expert Francis Gimblett takes a similar view. “I tend to pooh-pooh a lot of matches,” he says. “Too much attention is paid to the match rather than allowing each to show its full potential. One must not kill the other.”
The key to success, according to WSET wine educator Julia Lambeth, is to find a link between the two. “It’s about a bridging point of similar flavours in the cheese and wine, but you also need to think about intensity and structure, and how acidity works with fat. Dry whites often work because they cut through the creaminess of cheese.” For cheesemonger Alan Watson, the aim of cheese and wine matching is to elevate both the cheese and wine. “If you get a good pairing then you find something new and the conversation flows. One of the reasons I work in cheese is because complex flavours get people talking.”
