Big Wines and Bigger Cheeses… Oct. 14, 2023
It was a very good day at the shop on Saturday. The wines were exceptional, the cheeses on point, and all the customers were thrilled with our selections.
On Saturday, I found that the selections of wines were in recognition of the family of wine labels that the founder of my shop (which does have a heavy component of wine as well as cheese) has put his stamp of approval on. He tends to prefer exceptional Californian wines, but we also broke out a 2016 vintage from Marche, Italy.
The wines all had quite a bit of personality, and our head monger was very much up to the task of pairing them with cheeses that could stand up to their notable flavors. We sampled cheeses from around the world, some very well known and others from upcoming or lesser-known makers. Overall, it was a very impressive sampling day at the shop. I was definitely taking notes on the pairings to remember for the upcoming season of parties and gathering.
Let’s explore the pairings that my shop featured on September 30.
2022 Fisch Sauvignon Blanc – Sonoma County, California | Paired with Lamb Chopper (Cypress Grove, Arcata, California)
2021 Go Figure Lot 92 Cabernet Sauvignon – Napa, California | Paired with Midnight Moon (Cypress Grove, Arcata, California)
2021 Fisch Cabernet Sauvignon – Sonoma County, California | Paired with Grand Noir (This Is Fine Cheese, Bavaria, Germany)
2016 Go Figure Lot 69 Marche Rosso – Marche, Italy | Paired with Gouda Burning Mélange, Marieke, Thorp, Wisconsin)
Let’s begin with our Sauvignon Blanc from Sonoma. The nose gave a bright whiff of juicy, fresh peaches and contrasting lemon. It is a light to medium bodied wine that is light enough to drink alone with no pairings, but robust enough for a white wine that you could easily pair it if you want to. Overall, it’s a bright, crisp wine that’s perfect for the summer-to-fall transition we find ourselves in here in the Northeast! We paired this wine with Lamb Chopper, a well-known cheese from Cypress Grove and the maker’s only sheep’s milk cheese. Lamb Chopper is made in collaboration with a creamery in Holland and is aged for three months. I think it would be fair to call it a Gouda-style cheese, but it definitely has a delectable, downright addictive fattiness (from the high fat content of sheep’s milk) that makes it, in my opinion, the most snackable cheese on table here! It gives a nuttiness that’s characteristic of Gouda-style cheeses, and has a sweet, milky undertone. Highly recommend!
Next, we have our 2021 Cabernet Sauvignon from Napa. As a young Cab, one of the comments people gave was that it would age very nicely with another five years in the bottle. For the folks who bought the bottle and intended to drink it soon though, we recommended that they decant it and let it breathe for an hour or two before drinking. This Cabernet was deep dark, and vibrant. In the bouquet you got blackberry, cassis, a variety of baking spices, and a bit of floral hints. The palette gave cherries, strawberries, and even juicy red peach. To summate, this wine had a lot going on! It needed a cheese that could stand up to its boldness and shine when paired. Look no further that customer favorite, Midnight Moon. A cheese that needs very little introduction, Midnight Moon is available in nearly any cheese shop, and nearly every upscale grocery store. This cheese is made in collaboration with a creamery in Holland, and it’s aged at least six months. During the aging process, it develops those sensational tyrosine crystals (aka flavor crunchies), and is the most beautiful ivory color you’ve ever seen. I’m serious, when it comes time for me to get married and have a wedding, I will ask for a dress that is the color of this cheese. The wheel even has an illustration of a Dutch women that could understandably be mistaken for a subject in a Degas painting. It’s simply beautiful. Beyond aesthetics, it has a taste that could make you weep. It tastes best when it has been left out at room temperature for 30-60 minutes, and I have found (not sure if anyone in the cheese authority would agree, but it’s my experience!) that the longer you leave it out, the fruitier and sweeter it tastes! It’s exquisite at any time, and you’ll get the nutty notes with a long caramel finish whenever you eat it. I can’t recommend this cheese highly enough! And fun fact: Midnight Moon was the very first fine, artisanal cheese I ever tasted beyond the cheese wall at Trader Joe’s. It happened about 5 years ago, when Midnight Moon was added to a platter that a friend was gifting me, from the very shop I work at now.
Moving on to the 2021 Cabernet Sauvignon, this wine was giving ripe black cherry, dark plum, and hints of even cedar. It’s a full bodied wine, and even gives a hint of licorice on the palette. This wine is a blend of 85% Cab, 6% Malbec, 5% Petite Syrah, and 4% Merlot, but was sophisticated enough to pass. Though fruity, it wasn’t jammy at all and the tannins were incredibly smooth even though it’s a young wine. Our head cheesemonger paired this wine with Grand Noir, a wax-coated blue cheese made in Bavaria, Germany. I had very little idea that there are blue cheeses made in Germany, and I’m very glad I had the opportunity to be educated this past Saturday! Grand Noir is lactose-free (another surprise!) due to the natural maturation process during cheese-making even though it is super creamy, as well as gluten-free and vegetarian because the makers use microbial rennet rather than traditional animal rennet. I had never tried this blue cheese before, and I am very glad I had the chance to on Saturday! It’s definitely one of my new favorite blue cheeses, as I discovered the thick, luscious creamy texture, the taste that is at once sweet, salty, and fruity, and the beautiful presentation with mold the color of a dreamy blue lagoon. I’m looking forward to trying this cheese again and exploring pairings!
Finally, we move to our 2016 Marche Rosso blend. For those unfamiliar with Marche (as I was) it is a region in Italy bordered by Tuscany, Lazio, Abruzzo, Umbria and Emilia-Romagna, as well as by the Adriatic Sea. This wine is a blend of 50% Sangiovese, 40% Cab, and 10% Merlot. It normally sells for $20, but today the shop was running a promotion that priced this bottle at $17.99, which I could hardly believe given the age! This wine is nearly a decade old, and customers were gravitating towards it – this was the bottle I ended up selling the most of! It was a medium to full bodied wine, and honestly reminded me of a Pinot Noir – a bit light and earthy. As far as the cheese pairing goes, we went with Gouda Burning Mélange from Marieke, a Wisconsin creamery. This is not your run-of-the-mill Gouda in any way. This Gouda incorporates an intoxicating blend of herbs including chives, onion, stinging nettle, celery, parsley, and garlic. All that sounds like it could be overwhelming and disruptive to the taste of the cheese itself, but it was done incredibly well, and it’s the cheese that I sold the most of from the sampling table! People really appreciated how well balanced it is, and it complemented the red blend very well. The subtle earthiness of the wine allowed the herbaceous quality of the cheese to shine.
I hope you learned something or bookmarked a pairing to try the next time you shop for any of these cheese, or pick up any of these wines! Thank you for reading.
