🍷 Wine & Cheese Pairing Guide 🧀
Separately, both the wine and cheese are delicious. Together, the strong flavour of cheese accentuates the dominant flavours of the wine. Indeed, the palate becomes more sensitive when combining cheese and wine, so you will be able to detect more lovely flavours in the wine.
Goat Cheese and wine pairing guide:
Goat cheese and white wines such as Sauvignon Blanc, and especially Sauvignon Blanc from New Zealand which is a fruit-driven wine, are a great match but it is also easy to pair this cheese family with other wines.
A wonderful goat cheese to pair with champagne or sparkling from the Loire region that is made primarily with Chenin Blanc, Cabernet Franc and Pinot Noir are also a good choice.
If you prefer red wine, you could choose a light, fresh, fruity red wine such as Beaujolais, Chinon, Saumur and Saumur-Champigny wines.
So basically any wine, white, red or rosé, that is young, fresh, unoaked, and lightly chilled will go with goat cheese. Which makes it the perfect summer cheese!
Hard Cheese and wine pairing tips:
Hard cheeses well match with a relatively young and relatively hard, not too much strength or age, wines.
For a perfect match choose a dry white wine or a light to medium-bodied red wine. Their tannins and weight will work well with the structure of hard cheese. Don't hesitate to choose bold wines such as Nebbiolo, Sangiovese, Aglianico, Rioja or Bordeaux blends from cooler climates like Bordeaux or Margaret River.
Semi-Hard Cheese and wine pairing guide:
As the Hard Cheese, you should favor a glass of dry white wine with a touch of oak such as Chardonnay, Pinot Gris or Rioja.
You can also choose to pair Semi-Hard Cheese with red wines. To do so, a gutsy, rustic, crunchy wine without much oak, like Côtes de Rhône, Corbières, St-Chinian, Chianti, Mencía or a young Bordeaux blends will be perfect!
Washed Rind Cheese and wine pairing tips:
Washed Rind Cheese often pairs well with white and medium-bodied red wines. If the washed rind cheese is creamier, choose a medium-bodied Pinot Grigio or dry, traditional-method sparkling wines! However, if the cheese is a little older and denser with deep nuttiness and notes of garlic, a juicy, berry Pinot Noir, Beaujolais or Poulsard will be a perfect match!
For example, our Reblochon would be perfect with a Chignin Blanc and Epoisses will perfectly pair with a Chambertin which is said to be a favorite of Napoleon.
White Mould Cheese and wine pairing guide:
Creamy Camembert, Brie and other white mould cheeses pair perfectly with white wine and more especially a light-bodied, dry, unoaked Chardonnay. This wine shines with these types of cheeses! You can also have a glass of restrained, dry, light-bodied Sauvignon Blanc or a dry, young Chenin Blanc!
White Mould Cheese also pairs well with Champagne or with a Domaine Chandon rosé. For something different, try this cheese in the summer is a nice cold glass of Pimms. The contrast is to die for!
If you prefer red wine, it pairs well with a fruity wine such as a Beaujolais from a good vintage such as 2015.
Blue Cheese and wine pairing tips:
Blue cheese are tricky to match with wine. It could easily lead to a bad combination! Many Blue Cheeses are mild enough to be reasonably kind on wine. You can simply pair it with a fruity red wine which is a safe bet with milder blue cheeses.
However, be careful with stronger blue cheeses. They often need specific wine types. For Roquefort, go for a dry white wine such as Sauternes or similar sweet wines, including Monbazillac and Cadillac.
