Cheese and wine, how do you pair them? That’s what I thought when I first started. What should you drink with your cheese? What cheese goes best with which wine?
Wine and cheese are two great indulgences that greatly heighten each other’s performance, especially when paired perfectly. To establish the best wine and cheese pairings, it is pertinent to consider the texture of the cheese, the structure of the wine, and their aromatic features. All the features should be complementary enough to match each other’s flavor.
To make perfect cheese and wine pairings, it is advisable to pair valiant cheese with valiant wine. Cheese-wine pairing newbies finding it hard to pair the right cheese with wine should pair cheeses produced in a nearby region with your cheese. They tend to make a perfect match.
It is very easy to make and enjoy your cheese and wine. You have to pour out your wine into a glass. And serve yourself a cheese with the right crackers or cheese knives, and that’s all.
This short guide will list our ten favorite cheese and wine pairing. While you can enjoy a glass of wine with almost any cheese, some pair better than others. Here are some of our favorites!
What Cheese Goes Well With Wine?
It always seems to be a hard choice when deciding which goes better with some French Brie or a glass of Merlot for cheese and wine. While many people prefer pairing cheese with wine, others have no preference. Having established pairings will help you establish the best recipes possible to accentuate your meal and enhance the flavor profiles of each dish on your table.
The art of pairing cheese with wine can be challenging for a beginner-intermediate wine connoisseur. In this article, you’ll learn what cheese goes well with a certain wine. You don’t need to be an expert in developing tasty combinations. These are some of the best cheese and wine combos that we know of.
1. Champagne and Brie
Start with champagne if you’re looking for great cheese and wine pairing. The drink’s effervescence is a natural match for the creamy texture of Brie.
Brie, a triple-cream cheese, is a soft cheese, softer than most cheeses. Champagne, on the other hand, has an acidic and sharp flavor. This is to say, Brie and champagne will make a perfect combo.
Imagine the sharp, acidic bubbles of champagne paired with a creamy thick brie. To cut through the fats in Brie, champagne makes the perfect option. Pairing champagne with brie cheese gives you that sweet brioche flavor you get in traditional sparklers with a touch of slight toastiness.
Champagne and Brie is an iconic French combination. The rich, creamy cheese goes beautifully with the fresh acidity of champagne. The cheese has a slight nuttiness to it, which complements the dryness of champagne perfectly. The resulting flavor combination is complex yet very enjoyable and easy to eat. You can also try similar pairings like Crémant and Époisses, Chardonnay and Camembert, or Cava and Délice de Bourgogne.
2. Tempranillo and Idiazabal
Looking for the perfect cheese and wine pairing, look no further than Tempranillo and Idiazabal.
The adage goes, “if it grows together, it goes together”. Tempranillo and Idiazabal grow and go together because the two are Spanish and have a similar taste (smoky and savory flavor) that makes a perfect match. The hard texture of Idiazabal cheese complements the tannins of the tempranillo wine.
Tempranillo is a grape variety native to Spain used in making wine for centuries. It is grown all over Spain, but the best-known areas are Navarra and La Rioja. Both of these regions produce excellent wines made from Tempranillo grapes. Tempranillo wines have intense aromas, flavors, and tannins that pair well with cheeses.
The Idiazabal cheese is a Spanish cheese made from sheep’s milk. It is produced in the Basque Country region of Spain. The texture of this cheese is creamy, with a strong aroma and flavor that make it an excellent complement to Spanish red wines such as Tempranillo or Rioja Alavesa. You can also make a similar pairing of Garnacha and Zamorano, Mencía and Roncal or Rioja and Manchego.
3. Goat Cheese And Sauvignon Blanc
Goat cheese and Sauvignon blanc have a similar tart and earthy flavor. However, some goat cheeses are slightly blank-slate. Therefore the mineral and citrus notes in French Sauvignon Blanc help bring out the awesome nutty flavor found in goat cheese.
This is one of my favorite pairings, as the acidity of the wine cuts through the creaminess of goat cheese. The two also complement each other well, with the acidity of sauvignon blanc cutting through the richness of goat cheese and making it taste fresh again. The citrus notes of the Sauvignon Blanc complement the tanginess of the goat cheese quite nicely. The acidity in both the wine and the cheese helps balance any excess fat from other ingredients in your meal. This is a great pairing for grilled fish, chicken, or pork dishes.
The acidity of this red wine also helps greatly to cut through the heaviness or fatty contents of goat cheese. Goat cheese is a wonderful alternative to pair with your French wine, Sauvignon Blanc. If this pairing does not sit well with you, you can try a similar pairing such as Mencía and Roncal, Rioja and Manchego, or Garnacha and Zamorano.
4. Aged Cheddar And Cabernet Sauvignon
The classic pairing of cheese and wine, a glass of Cabernet Sauvignon, will pair well with a rich and creamy cheddar like Aged Cheddar. The combination of flavors is similar to eating a steak with onions, as both have a slightly sweet and savory taste that goes well together.
Aged Cheddar is also very dense in flavor to complement the high tannin level of Cabernet Sauvignon. The bold flavors of both wine and cheese will go well together, making this a great pairing for any occasion.
A larger, bolder cheese desires a wine that can raise it, spin it around, and not get winded along the line. Aged Cheddar has a fatty content that wonderfully fits the mouth-drying tannins you’ll find in most Cabernet Sauvignons. However, rather than one outshining the other, their ambitious flavors complement perfectly.
You can also opt for a similar pairing if the above cheese and wine are unavailable. You can go for pairings like Carménère and Smoked Gouda, Nero dAvola and Asiago or Montepulciano and Parmigiano-Reggiano.
5. Havarti And Provence Rosé
The best cheese and wine pairings can be hard to find, especially if you’re new to the game. It’s easy to get overwhelmed by all the options and forget that some tried-and-true combinations work every time. With that said, you should know that Havarti And Provence Rosé is a true masterpiece.
The crisp, purple fruit you locate in a Provence Rosé is delicious, however delicate, and the mellow taste you locate in a Havarti enhances the wine gracefully without overpowering it. Relation, In addition to this, the steely minerality of a Provence Rosé is an exceptional evaluation of the soft, smooth texture of the Havarti.
Havarti is an excellent choice for pairing with Provence rosé because it has a very mild flavor, making it easy to pair with various wines. The creamy texture of the Havarti will complement the light sweetness of the Provence rosé, while its mild flavor will not clash with or overpower the wine’s delicate flavors. A good way to pair these two ingredients is by combining them in a salad or using them as toppings for burgers or sandwiches.
You can also go for a similar pairing like Rosado and Ricotta or Sangiovese Rosé and Mozzarella.
6. Raclette And Riesling
The classic pairing of raclette and riesling is a match made in heaven. Raclette, made from a Swiss cheese that melts easily, is traditionally served with potatoes and pickles. Rieslings are known for their crisp acidity, which balances the richness of raclette perfectly.
Raclette is a sweet, versatile cheese with a buttery and smooth texture. Raclette is believed to pair nicely with high acidic and fruit-flavored wines, and riesling has all these features. Hence, they can make a perfect match.
Raclette can be paired with various wines, from dry to sweet, white to red. The sweetness of the riesling complements the nutty flavor of raclette perfectly. The acidity in the wine helps cut through the strong flavors in the raclette while maintaining its distinct character. The texture of both wine and cheese complement each other well, making this one of the best raclette pairings.
The fragrant scents of the classic German wine, riesling, bring out a subtle and unexpected nuttiness in an amazing first-rate Havarti. Go for a half-dried Riesling so that its sweetness does not overpower raclette.
7. Pecorino Toscano And Chianti Classico
This is another typical example of the “what grows together, goes together “pairing ideology. Pecorino Toscano is a hard cheese made in the same region as Chianti Classico. The hard, aged texture of Pecorino Toscano pairs nicely with the booming tannins of a Chianti Classico.
Pecorino Toscano is a firm and salty cheese that pairs well with red wines. The best match for Pecorino Toscano is Chianti Classico. This wine is made from Sangiovese grapes grown in Tuscany, Italy. The wine has a deep color and a strong aroma. It has a fruity taste with blackberry, cherry, and raspberry hints. This wine goes well with grilled or roasted meat, especially beef steak. You can also pair it with grilled sausage or salami.
The savory secondary notes in a Chianti convey a hidden natural flavor in the cheese, with the wine’s black fruit conserving up perfectly against the firmity of the cheese. The cheese and wine nicely complement each other’s flavor. If you can not get your hands laid on Pecorino or Chianti, you can substitute them with similar pairings like Brunello di Montalcino and Grana Padano or Sangiovese and Parmigiano-Reggiano.
8. Fiore Sardo And Vermentino
Fiore Sardo, a nutty sheep’s cheese, pairs very well with the extra oily texture of a Vermentino. However, the saline flavors of both make it possible that each affects the other enhancive. This type of pairing has the highest reciprocity rate; they tend to reciprocate exactly; hence there is a mutual relationship between the Fiore Sardo and Vermentino.
Fiore Sardo and Vermentino is a great wine pairing I discovered in Sardinia. The Fiore Sardo cheese is a sheep’s milk cheese that is made with the addition of herbs and spices. The Vermentino wine is an Italian white varietal with floral aromas and citrus notes.
This is one of my favorite pairings because the cheese does not overpower the wine like a blue cheese would do. It is a nice pairing because you can get a lot of flavor from both items. The wine has low tannins and goes well with spicy foods like tacos or chicken wings. Combining these two will create an interesting juxtaposition between the spicy cheese and the fruity wine.
9. Malbec and Edam
Pairing Adams’s sweet, nutty flavors and Malbec’s velvety fruit is the kind of pairing that pretty much all people can experience. With a combination of flavorful cheese and wine and the aromatic without each overpowering the other, this pairing will birth sweet and deliciously complex flavors.
Malbec is a very popular red wine but not one you’d necessarily think of pairing with cheese. However, this wine goes particularly well with hard and semi-hard cheeses such as Edam or Gouda. The sweetness and fruitiness of the Malbec balance out the saltiness of the cheese while leaving room for the complex flavors to shine through.
Malbec and Edam are great pairings because they both have a lot of flavors. Malbec is a red wine with many tannins, which are the same thing that makes your mouth pucker after eating an unripe grape. However, if you pair it with something like Edam cheese, the tannins in the wine will help soften up the cheese’s taste. The result is an incredibly rich and flavorful pairing that is sure to be enjoyed by anyone who tries it.
10. Blue Stilton And Aged Port
If you haven’t tried this pairing, you’re in for a real treat. The rich, sweet taste of the cheese is complemented by the sweet, fruity notes of the port. It’s a combination that’s hard to beat.
Port is well known for its full-frame, sweetness, and formidable features. And once you have this at the back of your mind, you will need a cheese that complements these features. The complex features of a smelly, salty Blue Stilton pair superbly with an aged sweet Port.
Since Stilton is sweet, it complements the stinkier flavor of the port. The sweet, fruity flavors of port complement the nutty, creamy taste of Stilton perfectly. The earthy undertones add even more depth to this match. Aged Port works particularly well with blue cheeses because it has its blue mold, its signature flavor.
To wrap everything up, wine and cheese are famous dance partners; they need each other to make a good dance. If you plan a party to serve cheese and wine, adopt some of the wine and cheese pairings mentioned above; trust me, you will testify. Not just that they are delicious, but they may enhance your pairing ability.
Cheese and wine pairings are a classic for a reason. The rich, satisfying taste of cheese played off by the lighter, fruitier wine is delicious, but it also plays with your palate in exciting ways. Some cheeses are pungent and bold by themselves but are mellowed by the wine, while some wines are crisp and light until they meet the earthy intensity of the cheese.
Finding the right combination of cheese and wine is a complex process. However, imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, so mimicking the expert approach to identifying optimal pairings can help you get closer to your desired results. This handy guide can lead the way.
