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January Wine Tasting – Have some wine with that cheese

Wednesday, January 12, 2022 7pm EST / 5pm MST

It’s time for a party and your guests are about to come tumbling in. You set out bowls of salty snacks and a grand platter of cheeses. There’s creamy
white chèvre, a Stilton, some Brie, nutty aged Gruyère, tangy Vermont cheddar, and a splurge-worthy chunk of 4-year Gouda.

It’s time to start popping corks. What wine goes best with all those cheeses? Pairing wine and cheese is complicated because there isn’t just one kind of wine and one kind of cheese. Cheeses vary in moisture content, fat content, texture, flavor. Wines, too, vary in acidity, sweetness, body, and
structure. Fortunately, a few basic guidelines will bring match-making success.
Like cheeses, wines also run the gamut from delicate to bold, and their depth and complexity can correlate with their age, too.

Purchase the Cheese

  • Goat Cheese: Chevre that is plain or try an herbal infused one like Boursin
  • Brie: A soft mild, fatty (weepy) cheese
  • Cheddar: Try a sharp hard aged Cheddar from Vermont, Ireland, or Wisconsin
  • Blue Cheese: Stilton, Roquefort, Maytag Blue (a blue veined cheese with plenty of tangy flavor)

Purchase the Wine

  • To Pair with our Chevre (Soft Goat Cheese) Pick one or more of the following wines that should pair well with this type of cheese:
    • Sancerre – a White wine from the Loire Valley of France subregion of Sancerre, from the Sauvignon Blanc grape
    • Sauvignon Blanc from Marlborough, New Zealand
  • To Pair with our Brie (soft creamy cheese) – Pinot Noir – medium bodied red wine from one of these geographic areas:
    • Bourgogne (Burgundy, France)
    • Willamette Valley, OR US
    • Central Coast, CA< /li>
    • Central Otago or Marlborough, New Zealand
  • To Pair with our hard, sharp Cheddar Cheese:
    • Cabernet Sauvignon from California, US
    • Rioja Reserva – from the Tempranillo Grape, Rioja, Spain
    • Chardonnay – Macon Villages, France or California
  • To Pair with our tangy Blue veined Cheese:
    • Port wine (choose a Tawny or Ruby style)
    • Sauternes (dessert wine from Bordeaux area of France

Tasting Glasses

Make sure to have three identical clear wine glasses with stems. This will ensure a consistent experience for comparing the wines.

Learning Environment

  • A computer equipped with a camera and speakers (and/or a headset)
  • A table with a white background
  • A pencil or pen to complete your tasting form
  • A glass of water
  • Water, a spit bucket, wine opener (or Coravin if you have one)

For even more pairing fun!

For even more pairing fun, supplement your cheese course with several of the following to see how the
various combinations work with each type of wine:
• Nuts
• Olives
• Charcuterie
• Dried Fruits
• Crackers/Breads/Chips
• Canned Fish (Anchovies, Sardines, etc.