Thoughts from a Cheese Contrarian
Since this nation appears to be lurching violently to the side of Christian rhetoric and reflexive dogma, I think I may need to “get with the program.”
Hence, I have compiled my thoughts about wine as they relate to cheese (this month’s core topic at Poetry of Food), issuing a Wine Commandment, which the flock may follow:
Thou shalt not serve cheese before dinner and when thou doesteth, thou shalt not serve heavily oaked wines.
The whole idea of an “appetizer,” or what the French call an “entrée” at dinner, is that this course is meant to give you an appetite, help build your hunger for what is to follow. Eating a huge quantity of rich cheese as an appetizer does NOT set one up for the next course; if anything, it depresses one’s appetite and unnecessarily fills you up.
So if you call me over for dinner, please serve a selection of cheeses AFTER the main dinner course.
And when serving cheese, please do not pour a heavily oaked (usually American or Australian) red, or white, wine, whose tannins fight the dairy notes of cheese. Instead, how about serving under-oaked, or at the very least, properly oaked, wines with cheese?
As for the type of wine to serve: I eschew the old rule, which suggests you pull out a well-aged Bordeaux or Burgundy to accompany cheese; my favorite red to serve with cheese is probably Port, which is especially wonderful when paired with Stilton, Roquefort, or any of the ‘green’ cheeses.
In terms of white wines, which are my preference with cheese, I do like a sweet “sticky,” or Sauternes. But a low-alcohol white refreshes the palate of heavier cheese flavors, which may linger. As such, I often serve a chilled Sancerre, or offer guests a glass of Champagne with the cheese course. And after a particularly grandiose dinner, I often serve a low-alcohol (under 9%), slightly effervescent, white Moscato d’Asti, from Italy, which usually tastes of pears, and apples.
In other words, let the cheese do the talking.
And speaking of talking, the only words from your lips should be the Wine Commandment above, which you must keep muttering to yourself, treating it like a mantra.
Jim White
Jim White lives in Napa Valley, California, where he makes wine, and writes about food and wine for his own site napaman.com. Jim is also a co-founder and active partner in one of North America’s most successful commercial bakeries, FGF Brands, in Toronto, Ontario. Over a span of 30 years, as one of North America’s leading food and beverage product developers, Jim successfully brought to market more than 10,000 products. Jim attributes his product development success to the journalistic approach he brings to each food assignment; he has an innate curiosity to know how things work, or why they taste the way they do. It makes sense that Jim propels his food career with journalistic principles as he has had a parallel career in journalism for all the years he created food products. In the 1970s, Jim was a foreign correspondent in Africa, covering wars and famines, writing for the largest newspapers in North America, for UPI and the Associated Press. In the 1980s, Jim became food editor and restaurant critic of The Toronto Star, one of the largest newspapers in North America. Although twice named “Best Food Writer in North America,” Jim has also always been passionate about the visual element; he is an accomplished photographer, and over the years has sold images to Life, Time and Newsweek magazines.