When pairing wine and cheese, make sure one flavor doesn't trip up the other.
By CHRIS SHERMAN
Published May 26, 2004
[Times photo: Joseph Garnett Jr.]
Cheeses joined the main attraction at the annual Bern’s Winefest in April. One wine, viognier, can be a pleasing complement to all of them.
Wine and cheese. What could be easier? Like hot dogs and mustard, vodka and caviar.
Or not? Cheese and wine are a dicey pair. Despite trays of toothpick-impaled cubes at wine tastings, the lush, fatty texture of cheese can deaden the palate, not cleanse it. That's the origin of the old wisdom among merchants, "Buy on apples, sell on cheese," to keep their taste buds sharp when money was at stake.
But we love them both, wine and cheese, two beautiful products made over the centuries by fermenting grapes and milk into hundreds of varieties.
And now there are more wines and cheeses than ever.
Enjoy what you like, but if you worry about matching them up, there's an easy way and a hard way.
Let's start with the hard way, although it's more like a semisoft. Seek matches and harmonies, not contrast, by strength of body and flavor so neither overpowers the other. (Since we're talking cheese, think in terms of milk: nonfat milk is much thinner and milder than whole milk with cream or butter.)
* Light, white fresh cheeses (fresh mozzarella): Sparkling wines, crisp dry whites such as sauvignon blanc or pinot grigio.
* Soft white cheese with rind (Camembert): Full-bodied chardonnays, oaky and creamy, match well with fatty cheeses. So can big reds.
* Semisoft yellow cheese (Havarti): Pinot noir, Burgundy and other lighter reds.
* Hard cheeses (Parmesan): Cabernet, Bordeaux and heavier syrahs stand up to salty, smoky cheeses.
* Strong cheeses (blue): Port, Sauternes and dessert wines.
But what if you want to try several cheeses, as most of us do? There is an easy way.
It came up during an elaborate seminar at April's Bern's Winefest in Tampa. SideBern's sommelier, Amy Cairn, had carefully paired six wines with six rare American farmstead cheeses, but one wine, a Virginia viognier, went with all of them.
It's one more reason to try viognier, a peachy white wine from the Rhone and an increasing number of wineries in California and Australia. Viognier is a chameleon, somehow both crisp and full. For reds, pinot noir can be the wine for all cheeses.
