The best part about a wine tasting is the fact that the sommelier knows what wines go best with what cheeses. But when you're out on your own, the choices can seem overwhelming. These 5 tips will help you find the perfect pairing for your wine and cheese no matter where you are!
1. Pair bold flavored reds with aged cheeses.
The older the cheese, the more flavorful it becomes. There are many people who love aged cheeses, especially with wine. If you're looking for the best wine to pair with your favorite aged cheese, find a red wine that has bold flavors.
When you combine aged wine with wine with high tannin concentrations, you will find they interact nicely together. Some of the best-aged wines to pair with flavorful red wines are Cheddar, Gouda, or any Parmesan-style cheeses that have been aged for at least one year.
2. Pick sparkling wine to pair with your soft and creamy cheeses.
Taste buds love creamy and soft cheeses as much as tasty desserts. So what wine is the best to pair with the cream cheese? Sparkling wine.
Because sparkling wine has a high acidic level along with high levels of carbonation, palates are easily cleaned of the stickiness from the creamy cheese. If you particularly like Brie or Cremont cheese, you will find that sparkling wine wipes your palate clean so that you can enjoy more of the creamy goodness.
3. Origination means everything when pairing wine and cheese.
This is kind of an unorthodox pairing tip, but it is an easy one to remember. Wine and cheese that comes from the same place (region of the world - France, Italy, etc...) are great to pair together. Why? Because each region has specific characteristics and tastes that are original to that specific region.
If you like Sauvignon Blanc, a nice goat cheese from France will pair nicely together. Or, if you prefer Chardonnay, you can pair it with Epoisses de Bourgogne from France, too.
This pairing tip is a sort of tradition in many places, but no one has ever gone wrong with using this tip for their pairing choices!
4. Sweet wines go well with the funkiest of cheeses.
If sweet wine is what you fill your glass with, the best cheese for your tastes buds are the funkiest ones. Moscatos or Late Harvest dessert wines are great with the stinkiest cheeses that usually make you turn your nose up.
But why is this the case, you may be wondering? When you have a sweeter wine, such as a Moscato, and a cheese that is extra funky, they balance each other out. The extreme tastes from both give them the perfect pairing relationship.
5. Not sure which is best? Always choose a nutty wine to go with your cheese.
Sometimes pairing wine and cheese together might not seem like the easiest job. You may not know what the region a wine or cheese came from or the age of a cheese. If this is the situation you find yourself in, here's a general rule of thumb to get you by: go with a nutty wine to pair with any type of cheese.
The thing about using this universal rule is that cheese has a high concentration of fat which will inevitably counterbalance the tannin levels in red wine while also having the delicacy needed to compliment a beautiful tasting white wine.
If you find yourself tasting Gouda or Swiss, for example, you can choose any nutty wine and feel confident that your tasting experience will be top notch.
Perfectly finding a pairing for your wine and cheese doesn't have to be rocket science. In fact, many experts have found these tips to be tried and true. You don't have to do the taste testing to figure out what works. These 5 tips will help you find the perfect pairing with little-to-no effort on your part.
Everyone has different taste buds, and their desires for a wine and cheese pairing may be different from yours. Follow these 5 tips to find the perfect pairing for you, and you find yourself enjoying a nice glass of wine with a delectable cheese any time.
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