Pairings to get us through February… Feb 17, 2024
For a job that pays you to taste cheeses and sample wines all day long, you wouldn’t think it could get any better. It did, though, this past Saturday.
For a the last couple of months, I’ve recognized that in addition to the obvious pleasures of tasting spectacular cheeses & wines every Saturday (and getting paid for it!) there is another really incredible element of my job. You see, the area of New Jersey that my shop is, it’s filled with small, quaint, suburban towns. It has gotten to the point where I’ve been behind the tasting bar for long enough that I have my regulars who come in nearly every week to taste some amazing bites and sips, and hang out a bit, whether chatting with me or with others who are part of the “Saturday crew.”
I’ve taken care to learn as many regulars’ names as I can, and since I wear a name tag, most of them have already been calling me by name the whole time I’ve been there. There are a few gems with whom I am actually quite friendly and conversational, and who I honestly look forward to seeing each week. Last Saturday was just one of those days where I had really lovely interactions with everyone who came up to the bar, and where I felt a sense of true community and mutual appreciation. I try to add joy and smiles to my interactions there, and Saturday was a really wonderful day to spread some cheer.
And with that, I give you…. the four extremely snackable cheese & wine combinations perfect to get you through the rest of the cold February we’re having!
2020 Jonathan Didier Pabiot Leon Pouilly-Fumé – Loire Valley, France | Paired with La Tur (Alta Langa, Piedmont, Italy)
2021 Whitrow Shiraz – Barossa Valley, Australia | Paired with Tome Vache (producer unknown, Basque Region, France)
2018 Domaine Fondreche Il Etait Une Fois Ventoux – Ventoux, Rhone Valley, France | Paired with Camembert Fermier de Tremblaye (Ferme de Jouvence, Normandy, France)
2019 Go Figure Lot 88 Rutherford Cabernet Sauvignon – Rutherford, California, USA | Paired with Reypenaer (Wijngaard Cheese, Woerden, The Netherlands)
Our first wine was from an area of France I’d never heard of, called Pouilly-Fumé. It was named 2020 Jonathan Didier Pabiot Leon Pouilly-Fumé and despite sounding incredibly fancy and way too expensive for me to dream of buying, it’s actually just 100% Sauvignon Blanc grapes in the Nivernais region of Central France, just north of Paris. It was an interesting wine because the nose gave a beautiful bouquet, and the taste gave not very much at all. The aromas were composed of stone fruit, white currant and minerals - The latter of which is somewhat common with Sauvignon Blancs from the old world. I genuinely did enjoy the bouquet, which is why I was a bit surprised with the taste on my palate. It was incredibly subtle, though that’s France itself for you from what I hear, so I shouldn’t be surprised! It was very fresh and light bodied with a lot of acidity, though not from any citrus that my wine manager or I could detect. There was minerality on the palate as well, and a very short finish. It was a wine for people who (sorry!) don’t like wine. We paired this cheese with La Tur, an Italian soft ripened cheese with all three milks: cow, goat sheep. On this particular day, the small-format wheel was quite young, so the tang from the goat’s milk and the gaminess from the sheep’s milk were not heavily present. In fact, a lot of the customers said it reminded them of a high-end cream cheese! And quite honestly, I had to agree. In terms of aroma, I got more of the baked bread scent from the baguette we spread each bite on than I did the cheese itself. It did had a lovely texture, being thick and velvety and fatty. Plus, the rind of the La Tur is incredibly thin and delicate, so you barely notice it at all when you’re having a bite. Because of the acidity in the wine and the thick, fatty texture of the cheese, they did honestly go quite well together. I could easily see this being a perfect picnic or poolside snack in warmer weather, with chilled wine and room-temp cheese.
Second, we tasted a 2021 Whitrow Barossa Valley Shiraz from Australia, which happened to be my favorite wine at the tasting bar this Saturday. It was very nicely balanced between fruitiness and more earthy elements in both the nose and on the palate. Opening up with dark fruit, black cherry, baking spices, leather and a subtle smokiness, it gave quite a bit but felt very sophisticated and nuanced. It was one of the most lovely bouquets I’ve smelled! Once I took a sip, I found an unexpected slight tartness, most likely from some dark berries. It did have a high acidity, and finished with a robust but not overwhelming cracked black pepper feel. The finish left me wanting a bite that was either acidic and bright with body, or something with a predominant note of sweet cream. Enter: Tomme Vache, a cow and sheep’s milk tomme-style cheese from the Basque region of France. It smells of wet wool with a slight vegetal note, and is semi-hard in texture. It’s high moisture for a semi-hard cheese, and feels like it’s being smeared all throughout your mouth and gums, but thinly, somehow. Tomme Vache is quite creamy, and at room temperature gets silky smooth. With the wine pairing, it plays off the Shiraz’s acidity and tartness to yield an incredibly interesting pair with a lot of room for thought and detection. This pairing is perfect for a wine & cheese party where there’s room to explore and dedicate thought and appreciation for the combo. It’s definitely high-impact, and fit for a connoisseur!
Next, there was a 2018 Domaine Fondreche Il Etait Une Fois Ventoux wine, which was a Grenache blend from the Rhône Valley. It was an incredibly earthy wine, and my samplers could tell a big difference in style between the fruit-forward Shiraz and this Rhône Grenache blend. The bouquet gave dark fruit, but much more so gave earthy notes, tobacco and dark chocolate. My official tasting notes (which our wine manager pulls from the producer’s website and are often incredibly editorialized) lists graphite and crushed flowers amongst the aromas; go figure! The taste gave a big body with an ABV to match, at 14.5% - a somewhat high percentage for a French red wine with so little fruit on it. It tasted incredibly refined, with a fruitiness that was in sight but just out of reach. Very French. I did appreciate it, but I for one like either fruit-forward yet dry reds, or reds with a balanced fruitiness and earthiness. Nonetheless, we paired this wine with Camembert Fermier de Tremblaye, a classic French bloomy rind cheese. Also quite earthy in aroma, this Camembert gives mushroom on the rind and plenty of dusty barn floor notes, as is very typical with camemberts. The lack of sweetness in both the cheese and the wine makes it a nice match, where the creamy texture of the cheese helps round the thinly draped earth on the palate from the wine. I did really appreciate how the distinctive French baguette I ate with it added just a touch of bite and yeasty acidity, plus the crust stands up to the full flavors of the cheese.
And saving the only domestic wine of the day for last, we tasted the 2019 Go Figure Lot 88 Rutherford Cabernet Sauvignon. Coming to us from Rutherford in Napa Valley, this Cabernet Sauvignon blend really packed a punch. With grapes sourced from two different vineyards in Rutherford, the aromas and flavors were varied and concentrated offering black currant, black cherry, raspberry and plenty of baking spice. The wine was 96% Cab, with small additions of Petit Verdot (to help it age) and Merlot. In short, it is the perfect wine for your rich uncle who refuses to even taste white wine and eats rare steak like it’s granola. A big-bodied and bold wine like this deserves and shines next to a concentrated, intense cheese, and Gouda is the perfect pairing. Out of the half dozen or so Goudas from Holland that we carry in my shop, we chose Reypenaer 1-Year from Woerden, Holland. It gives lots of butterscotch and toffee, while being incredibly, beautifully full & fatty. Being aged for a year, it does have a lovely crystallization, but not as much as, say, Beemster XO (aged 18 months) would. The baking spice in the Cabernet Sauvignon brings out the sweet caramel notes of the Gouda. This might be weird, but if there were ever a perfect pairing combination to use whilst baking cookies or apple spice cake, this would be it! I never knew I needed an option for such an occasion, but the next time I bake I will absolutely be snacking on this combination alongside my process. The more you know…
