Selections from 2023’s Top 10 Wines & Cheeses… Dec 2, 2023
We are kicking it back into high gear at the shop as we inch closer and closer to the holidays, and a high octane holiday deserves equally high octane cheeses & wines.
Every year, my shop in Northern New Jersey releases its list of the top ten wines of that year. It’s a look back at what was most popular and what turned out to be most exciting, but also a look forward as the owner and wine experts look to predict which type of wines will be most popular for the upcoming year. I’ll be writing about three of the wines below, and for your reading pleasure the 2023 list can be found here.
As a hint of what oenophile pleasures there are to come, I discovered two wines on this past Saturday that are at the very top of my list of favorite red wines ever. I sampled the best Malbec I have ever had - a Malbec to get me (and you, dear reader) actually excited about Malbec, and the single best domestic Cabernet outside of California I’ve ever had.
And of course for my turophiles out there (raise your hands in pride, curd nerds!), we sampled what is, as of just a few weeks ago when I cut into a wheel - or rather, cylinder - of it for the first time, one of the blues I’m most excited about. We’ve also got truffle, pecorino, and a bonus cheese made less than a mile from my shop that will just about knock your socks off.
Sit back and allow the pairings to (hopefully!) inspire your upcoming cheese adventures.
2020 Vinos de la Luz Relatos del Callejon Malbec – Mendoza, Argentina | Paired with Shropshire Blue (Colston Bassett Dairy, Nottinghamshire, England)
2019 Montalbera Barbera D'Asti L'Equilibrio – Piedmont, Italy | Paired with Sottocenere al Tartufo (Moro Cheese Refiners, Veneto, Italy)
2019 River Crossing Columbia Valley Cabernet Sauvignon – Washington, United States | Paired with Sfizio Pecorino Aged (Mitica, Lazio, Italy)
BONUS CHEESE: Jibneh (Kasbo’s Market, New Jersey, United States)
The first wine and cheese pairing we sampled began with a truly exceptional Malbec from the world capital of Malbec wines - Mendoza, Argentina. It is the Vinos de la Luz Relatos del Callejon Malbec. It’s a relatively young wine at just 3 years old, but it was as sophisticated and deserving of fine appreciation as plenty of more aged wines. The bouquet gave violet, and unobtrusive red fruit like raspberry and ripe cherry. It’s a medium-bodied wine with some minerality, yet it’s delicate and gentle. It gave a lingering finish that was a bit tart, but still floral. This Malbec was a very sophisticated and nuanced wine, and it took the top spot on the Top 10 Wines of 2023 list from my shop. I almost wouldn’t pair this wine with any food, except the one type of food whose variations are capable of complementing any wine on earth… cheese! Our cheesemonger paired this Malbec with a British blue cheese that has risen very quickly from “I had no clue this cheese existed” to “this cheese is so freaking cool!” in my mind. The cheese pairing is Shropshire Blue from Colston Bassett Dairy. After looking into its history, I found that Colston Basset began producing this cheese after creating the iconic Stilton blue cheese, and only began consistently producing it well after the second world war ended and Britain had a demand for higher-end cheeses again. Shropshire Blue smells dusty, pungent and intense, but in a pleasant way! The texture is thick and rich, fudgey and fatty. The paste is smooth, but gives your tongue a dose of intrigue because of the granules of the blue veining that are very generously incorporated throughout. It has some black pepper on the finish, which lingers in a gorgeous way. With the Malbec, the spicy finish goes STUNNINGLY with the wine’s tart yet floral taste. There was a lot going on with all the flavors and textures, but the tartness on the wine’s finish combined with the spicy black pepper-fatty finish of the Shropshire was really doing it for me. This combination really allowed both the wine and the cheese to rise to each other’s level of punchiness, and there was a great deal of concentrated flavor. The wine and cheese were a lot in my mouth all at once, and I’m not entirely sure of how to best describe it, but I swear to you, reader, this pairing was absolute magic.
Next, we sampled Montalbera Barbera D'Asti L'Equilibrio, a wine from Piedmont that the official tasting notes I’m provided every Saturday described as “dark and brooding.” This goes to show just how editorialized some wine descriptions really can get, because neither myself nor our wine managers agreed! After tasting this Barbera D'Asti with them before customers starting showing up, our notes on both the nose and the palette were that this wine is a touch light for an Italian red, with somewhat fruit-forward notes including black cherry. We also caught a hint of dark chocolate, and it had a peppery finish that’s somewhat intense while it lasts in your throat. Even though I don’t think this wine is heavy enough to stand up to Nonna’s Sunday Sauce, I had one customer grab a bottle and say, “a great ravioli red.” Another customer shortly after noted that he was going to have it with the lasagna he was making for dinner that evening. I would call it an Italian classic hands down, but I think it’s best suited for vegetarian Italian fare and of course cheese. With this Barbera D'Asti, we paired another Italian classic - Sottocenere al Tartufo. Sottocenere al Tartufo comes to us from a dairy called Moro Cheese Refiners (it probably translates more elegantly in Italiano) who are based in Treviso, Veneto in Northern Italy. Made using cow’s milk from both the rich, fattier morning milking plus the evening milking, Sottocenere is aged for a minimum of four months in aged in oak ashes blended with nutmeg, anise, cloves, fennel, coriander, cinnamon, licorice and truffle, which all work as a totally organic and natural preservative as the wheels age. The Sottocenere al Tartufo has a scent and a taste that are incredibly refined with the truffle incorporation. There are plenty of cheeses where the paste is simply an afterthought, a vehicle to deliver you the truffle, but Sottocenere is extremely well done. The paste is elegant and semi-firm, and the truffles are beautifully distributed. I would rank this cheese as quite truffley, but truly it’s done well. It’s not an overpowering cheese, and you need a lighter wine to go with it. Personally, I thought that the Barbera D'Asti matched the Sottocenere well in the palette, but I thought its robust finish buried the cheese a bit. It could have very well only been me though, because of all the cheese sales cuts we put out, the Sottocenere disappeared the quickest with the wine!
Our third and final wine on Saturday was the single greatest domestic Cabernet Sauvignon outside of Napa and Sonoma I’ve had. It was the 2019 River Crossing Columbia Valley Cabernet Sauvignon from Washington State, and she was exquisite. The nose was fruit-forward but not too fruit-forward, with concentrated dark cherry and raspberry. It was an intense nose, but not an overwhelming one. The taste gave dark plum, blackberry, mocha, and a stunning wave of vanilla throughout. It had a lingering finish, and tannins whose age were just right. They were present, but quite smooth and they added to the overall drinking experience. We paired this Cabernet with Sfizio Pecorino Aged, which is a type of Pecorino Crotonese from Mitica. Produced in the region of Lazio in central Italy on the western side (for reference, Rome is located in Lazio), Sfizio Pecorino is a pasteurized sheep’s milk cheese. Fun fact: all pecorino cheeses are made using sheep’s milk, and “pecorino” literally means “of sheep” in English. As a cheese made in the style of Pecorino Crotonese, this Sfizio Pecorino is aged in wicker baskets for a minimum of three months, wherein the rind develops the intricate print of the basket’s weave, and takes on a golden color with purple and orange veining on the exterior. The cheese tastes nutty, but with an acidic quality that gives it a hardy bite, almost like an aged provolone. It was a little intense for me for a casual snacking cheese, but I can understand why hard core Italians would love it as a table cheese! I think it would go gorgeously grated over a red sauce pasta and then drizzled with a fine, bright Italian olive oil. Though, the Cabernet really helped me appreciate this cheese more, since its nice tannins aid in making the acidic bite of the cheese less, well, bite-y. The finish of the wine complements the cheese’s acidic finish, and it was almost as if the intensity of the cheese made the wine punchier with more spice on it. I think it’s really marvelous the way two things can interact and play on each other’s strengths to produce a whole new experience you wouldn’t have otherwise had.
And last but certainly not least, we had a real treat in the shop on Saturday! We had a local maker come in to do a cheese tasting and demonstration of the cheese she produces just a mile or so down the road from the store. I had the immense pleasure of tasting Jibneh, a classic Syrian cheese made by Kasbo’s Market. Jibneh is made from cow’s milk curd that is seasoned with salt and a unique spice called mahleb, which is derived from the seeds of cherry stones. It is quite the “shape shifter” cheese and has different scents and tastes in room temperature versus its melted states, but whenever I enjoy it, it always reminds me of chamomile tea. For the full scoop on Jibneh and its lovely maker, Benita, head on over to my Instagram to watch the video!
