How to Select Wine and Cheese

Guide Note

There are no strict rules for pairing wine and cheese. Because there are a fairly limited number of cheese varieties, finding the right combination is a little more straightforward than selecting wine for your meal. This guide offers some basic approaches to selecting a complementary combination of wine and cheese.

Table of Contents

• Introduction
• Salty Cheese with Sweet Wine
• Stinky Cheese with Full-Bodied Wine
• Creamy Cheese with Crisp White Wine
• Pair by Region
• Consult the Experts
• Resources for How to Select Wine and Cheese

More Mahalo Wine Tutorials

• How to Aerate Wine
• How to Host a Wine Tasting
• How to Make Wine
• How to Talk About Wine
• How to Select Wine and Cheese

Introduction

• Wine and cheese are old friends, going back thousands of years together, but not every specific pairing works. If you force a hearty bottle of Syrah on a mild Camembert, the flavors of the cheese will barely assert themselves. Likewise, try sticking a strong chunk of Roquefort with a dainty Sauvignon Blanc and your wine will become spiritless. Read on for some basic—though loose—guidelines to setting up the perfect couple.

Salty Cheese with Sweet Wine

• Just as saltiness and sweetness make a savory combination in candy, a sweet wine can nicely complement a salty cheese. It's a good rule of thumb to pair according to the degree of sweetness or saltiness: i.e. mildly salty cheese with mildly sweet wine and very salty cheese with very sweet wine.

Sweet port goes nicely with salty cheese. (Creative Commons photo by inspector_81)

Stinky Cheese with Full-Bodied Wine

• Pungent "stinky" cheese tends to go with big, full-bodied red wines. Some reds are particularly rich in tannin, a compound found in grape skins that lend a thick texture and astringent quality, both of which are a real asset for a wine trying to get a whiff in edgewise next to uncompromising cheeses like Limburger.

Stinking Bishop cheese pairs well with a full-bodied wine (Creative Commons photo by jpvargas)

Creamy Cheese with Crisp White Wine

• Creamy cheeses, particularly milder ones, tend to pair well with crisp white wines. Creamy cheeses like Brie coat the palate in fat, an effect that tends to weaken the flavors of red wines. On the other hand, the high acidity in wines like Sauvignin Blanc provides a refreshing counterpoint to the fatty cheese.

Triple Cream Brie. (Creative Commons photo by Janet)

Pair by Region

• One time tested approach to pairing is to choose wine and cheese from the same region. This works for two reasons: First, the wine itself is likely to have been developed together with the cheese, sometimes over hundreds of years. Secondly, cheese and wine from the same region may contain similar subtle flavors from the air and soil (see terroir). Here are a few examples:

• Langres with Champagne
• Langres is a creamy cheese from the Champagne region of France. As you may know, Champagne is also from Champagne!

• Oregon Syrah with Rogue River Blue Cheese
• The Syrah vineyards of southern oregon are gaining a reputation and could make an excellent pair with the award winning blue cheese from Southern Oregon's Rogue Creamery.

• Moscato d’Asti with Gorgonzola
• The lightly sparkling Italian wine is made within 100 kilometers of the soft, distinctive Italian cheese.

Consult the Experts

• As with any art, wine/cheese pairing is a matter of taste—specifically your taste. Still, it pays to heed the voice of experience. Consult the following sources for some specific pairing ideas.
• 

  Salty chevré pairs with sweet wine, just as it does with sweet fruit. (Creative Commons photo by Laurel F)

• Gourmet Sleuth's Wine and Cheese Pairing page lists over 67 international cheeses with wine pairing suggestions.

• Winemonger's guide wine and cheese pairing includes pairing suggestions for over 100 cheeses.

• Eric Asimov's surname evokes science fiction (he's the nephew of Isaac Asimov), but is the Chief Wine Critic of The New York Times. His blog, The Pour, offers colorful wine reviews, great pairing ideas and rare insights that are plenty down-to-Earth. His column on wine and cheese pairing cuts through the complexity of the subject.

Resources for How to Select Wine and Cheese

• The Wine Pages: Wine 101 - Wine and Cheese
• New York Times: Sommelier, Fromager, Make Me a Match (April 27, 2005)
• GourmetSleuth.com: Wine and Cheese Pairing
• Food-Info: A small overview of the most important world-wide cheeses
• ArtisanalCheese.com: Cheese Types | Wine and Cheese Pairings
• Dairy Goodness: Wines and Cheeses
• StinkyCheese.com: Stilton
• iGourmet.com: Stinky Cheese
• Surreal Gourmet: Dirty rotten stinky cheeses and the wines that love them
• WineWebCentral.com: Pairing
• Sportsman's Wine & Spirits: Cheese Glossary
• Pints Unlimited: Wine and Cheese
• American Cheese Society: Cheese and Wine Pairing
• TravelLady Magazine: Cheese Pairings

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