Cheese Community.com

How to Serve Cheese

Serving a variety of cheeses before dinner, after dinner, or as horsdoeuvres, makes an elegant and tasty snack. With very little preparation, a chees...More

How much of a cheesemonger are you?
Test your cheese knowledge with our Cheese Trivia Quiz!

Check out our Boston Cheese Shop Profiles.

Cheese and Wine Pairings

Submitted by Resident Cheesemonger

Cheese and wine were just made to be enjoyed together. They're both artfully produced with a wide range of complex flavors, and aging can serve to enhance the wine or cheese experience even more. Because cheese and wine pairing involves such delicate and distinctive tastes and aromas, it's important to be thoughtful about which wine you choose to pair with which cheese.

Of course, the enjoyment of both wine and cheese ultimately comes down to personal preference. If a given wine enriches a given cheese for you even though it's not "supposed" to, then it's a good pairing as far as your tastes are concerned. A good rule of thumb to follow when choosing cheese and wine pairings for yourself, but especially for others, is that variety is most definitely the spice of life. Serve multiple wines with multiple cheeses and everyone will be happy. You can still suggest what you believe are the optimal cheese-wine pairs, but let guests indulge their own senses of flavor and preferences.

And, as always, it's never a bad idea to consult your friendly neighborhood cheesemonger, and in this case wineseller. Many of them really know their stuff and can help you out immensely. Also, don't forget that, in addition to some lovely cheese and wine pairings, there are some delicious cheese and beer or cider pairings. These can be a lot of fun since guests aren't usually expecting them!

There are a plethora of schools of thought on how to properly pair cheese and wine. Here are just a few you might use as a guide.

• Some cheesemongers and winesellers suggest pairing hard cheeses with red wines, and softer cheeses with white wines. In certain cases I feel like this could create some strange combinations of overpowering strong flavors paired with milder ones, but is as good of a general rule as any.

• Another perspective is to pair strong flavored cheeses with strong wines, and vice versa. So you might pair a merlot or syrah with a strong cheese like Gruyere, or a riesling or pinot with fresh brie.

• A final school of thought centers around the idea that cheeses and wines made in the same region share certain flavor characteristics. The cows or sheep eat the grass produced by a given soil, for instance, and the grapes are grown in that same soil. This can be a fun way to pair cheese and wine for a themed cheese party, where you feature all wines and cheeses from a given region.

• Finally, here are a few well established cheese and wine pairings to get you started.

  • Mild goat cheeses and light, fruity wines like sauvignon blanc
  • Gruyere and chianti
  • Brie or camembert with chardonnay or champagne
  • Aged, mild cheeses like parmigian or gouda with older, robust wines like cabernet sauvignon
  • Fresh mozzerella and zinfindel
  • Blue cheeses like stilton, roquefort or blue d'auvergne with port or other sweet, dessert wines

Comment on this cheese article.