Wine and Cheese Pairing Selections
SAVOIE – Sparkling Wine and Cheese
If you haven’t tried sparkling wine and cheese yet, you have a treat in store. This Petille Idylle Crémant from the Haute Savoie is a revelation when matched with Joseph Paccard Reblochon from the same region – the best Reblochon we have ever tasted.
CRÉMANT DE SAVOIE: DOMAINE DE L’IDYLLE BRUT – ABV 12.5%
Savoie is an ancient and isolated vine area in southeastern France, with grape varieties seldom encountered elsewhere and wines that are rarely exported.
This Crémant de Savoie is a white sparkling wine, made with the same technique as Champagne from hand-picked slowly crushed Jacquére and Roussette grapes by the Tiollier family who have nurtured vines in the village of Cruet for generations.
Jancis Robinson appreciated its dry (but not austere) mouth-filling light fruit that makes Crémant the perfect partner for the region’s world-famous and celebrated cheeses.
REBLOCHON FERMIER – Cow, Raw Milk – 500g
Smooth and supple. Notes of ‘walnuts’ and ‘meadow flowers’.
The flagship cheese of Haute-Savoie. The green label indicates this is the rarer farmstead variety, and it’s been washed twice by Joseph Paccard, leading to an intoxicating aroma of leather and spruce.
LOIRE – White Wine and Cheese
What grows together goes together, and this is never truer than here. A fruity, rounded white from the Loire Valley is the perfect foil for an herbaceous goats’ cheese log from the same region.
VOUVRAY: JEAN-CLAUDE & DIDIER AUBERT DEMI-SEC – ABV 13%
The Loire Valley is the home of France’s renowned goats’ milk cheeses, and the village of Vouvray is just a few kilometres from our partner, Rodolphe Le Meunier, its most respected affineur.
The area’s volcanic limestone soil offers vines excellent drainage, and the excavated rock makes ideal subterranean cellars for aging wine; and producing wine here has been the life of the Aubert family for 200 years.
Their Vouvray, made from the Chenin Blanc grape, is an easy-drinking wine, fresh and pure; and the Demi-Sec version has a touch more residual sugar which makes it the ideal accompaniment for the region’s cheeses.
SAINTE MAURE DE TOURAINE – Goat, Raw Milk
Rich and delicately textured, with a subtle, herbaceous complexity.
Rodolphe ages his cheeses to the palates of his customers. For us Brits, Rodolphe ensures St. Maure is creamy, savoury and contained by only a wafer-thin rind.
BORDEAUX – Red Wine and Cheese
Roll out the red carpet for this celebrity pairing of ripe and fruity claret with smooth and nutty Comté. A wine and cheese A-list.
BORDEAUX: CHÂTEAU TOUR DE LUCHEY – ABV 14%.
The Tour de Luchey is an estate planted with 40 years’ old Merlot vines that produce grapes with an old vine richness. The youthful charm and ripeness of the red fruits offer a luscious, medium-bodied easy drinking but still robust claret that complements well-flavoured cheeses.
COMTÉ ST. ANTOINE – Cow, Raw Milk – 500g
Fruity, smooth, mellow and nutty. Made in a small, village-based co-operative called a fruitière. At a few weeks’ old, this Comté then enters Marcel Petite’s maturing rooms where it is regularly turned, brushed and rubbed.
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