Cheese – just for a bit of fun!

You know, people can be quite sniffy about matching their cheeses and wines; soft, hard, goat, sheep or cow, with or without stems, with or without crackers – it’s the real Burgundy minefield! Actually, I usually prefer a white wine with cheese; so I decided to go off the beaten track, and educate those European people, who were born south of Portsmouth, in the wonderfully wholesome thing that is English cheese.

How do such cheeses pair with, say, a nice 2012 Chevalier-Montrachet from Bouchard Père et Fils?!

Caerphilly:
Crumbly white cheese with a delicate, faintly salted flavour.
A modest wine such as the Chevalier-Montrachet, totally overpowers this cheese, the flavour of this lovely cheese is lost forever…

Wensleydale:
Also a white, crumbly cheese with a more robust texture and more salty and strident flavour – it’s a personal favourite.
Not a bad combination with this wine – it makes the Chevalier seem cooler, more mineral and intense. Interesting!

Lancashire:
A texture similar to Cheddar, but with a creamier flavour. As a Yorkshireman, clearly this cheese can’t be as good as the Wensleydale!
Hmm – the wine assumes a fuller, but no-less mineral impression that was the case for the Wensleydale. Curses! By far the best match yet!

Scottish Cheddar:
Hmm, that sounds a bit like Bulgarian Chablis doesn’t it. That said it has similar texture to the ‘real thing’, with a lighter colour and slightly less robust flavour.
This cheese is still quite a good match for the Chevalier; the wine stays round yet mineral

Red Leicester:
Orange-coloured (like Mimolette). A reasonably mild, slightly salty cheese.
Here the wine is still round, nicely textured and whilst still a little mineral, it has become a little anonymous – I don’t think anybody wants an anonymous Chevalier!

Shropshire Blue:
Maybe my most favourite cheese! A strong-flavoured thick and creamy-textured blue-cheese. Similar to Blue Stilton but with a characteristic light orange colour.
The wine is still round, but I’d say the sphere is smaller. Far more fruit flavour and minerality when compared to the combination with Red Leicester. Quite interesting!

Goats Cheese wrapped in sweet Sultanas:
A ringer, from France, but a delicious combination of the chees and sweet sultanas.
Oof! Due to the sweetness of those sultanas, this wine has an intense, mineral, almost Chablis impression – steely, and mouthwatering – it is like a completely different wine.

I simply can’t believe that I have to give the prize to a wine from Lancashire…!