Tips for a successful wine and cheese pairing

Now that the nice weather is upon us, it’s the perfect time to sip a glass of rosé wine on a terrace.

It’s sometimes hard to decide on what to serve with a rosé, especially a semi-dry rosé.  At Ferme Guyon, where we were last weekend, a visitor introduced us to the perfect cheese to serve with our Détente rosé.

But before we get into that, let’s take a look the rules to follow for a successful pairing of your wine and cheese:

1. Choose complementary products

You need to get products that you like and enjoy. Choose the wine first and let yourself be guided by these two basic principles:

• A mild cheese will be served with a light wine
• A sharp-aroma cheese will be served with a more aromatic wine
• A more aged cheese will pair with a coarse wine

The cheeses you select should offer a nice contrast between the taste of the wine and the texture of the cheese.

2. Preparation

Here are some tips for a pleasant, trouble-free tasting:

• Take the cheese out of the fridge about 30 minutes to an hour before tasting.  Cover the cheese platter with a damp cloth to keep the cheese moist and preserve its flavour and smoothness.    
• The wine or wines should not be too cold because that won’t help in being able to taste the flavours of the pairing. White wines and rosés should be kept at 15 degrees Celsius while the red wines should be kept at room temperature.  

3. Tasting rules :

As it is for the wine tasting, there are certain steps to follow in the cheese tasting. You’ll note that they are quite similar.

Wine tasting;

• Look at the wine’s appearance (its colour, tears of wine)
• Smell the wine’s aromas (bloomy, fruity, woody, …)
• Taste and feel the textures (mild, dry, full-bodied, …) and its flavours (citrus, flowers, complexity, …)

Cheese tasting;

Look at the colour and aspects of the cheese (washed rind, bloomy, surface-ripened,…)

• Smell the aromas of the rind and cheese slice
• Feel the cheese’s texture in your mouth
• Determine the cheese’s savours and sensations: is it delicate, strong or sharp? 

After a sensorial evaluation of the two products, you need to taste them together. It’s the same principle as it is with a meal. You have to do the tasting this way: take a sip, then a bite, then a sip.     

As a bonus, here are our wine and cheese pairing suggestions

Domaines Les Brome Détente rosé with El Nino cheese from Fromagerie des Cantons

El Nino cheese is semi-firm cheese. It has a washed rind. Its rind has a fresh-straw and mushroom aroma. It gets very creamy and almost fruity when it melts in your mouth. It is both mild and tasty. There’s a nice mildness to this cheese. It’s the perfect cheese to go with Détente rosé which brings out all of the cheese’s apricot aromas. The rosé’s red fruit allows you to get a better sense of the fullness of the aromas and savours of the cheese. It’s a pairing that provides a nice balance of flavours, which helps in enjoying the two products to the fullest.

Domaine Les Brome Réserve Vidal 2010 and Zéphyr cheese from Fromagerie Des Cantons

 There are sharper flavours in these two products… Réserve Vidal is a white wine, matured in oak casks for 16 months; there is a nice taste of vanilla, oak and fruits. Zéphyr is a firm cheese with washed rind. Its rind is beige and has an aroma of hay and nuts. It also has a stronger taste. Go ahead and bite into the cheese’s rind, don’t just leave it aside. Réserve Vidal is woody-type wine and that evokes the cheese’s rustic side. The wine adds citrus and vanilla aromas which soften the aftertaste. 

You can buy these products at:

Fromagerie Des Cantons: 441 Boulevard Normandie, Farnham.
Vignoble Domaine Les Brome: 285 chemin Brome, Fulford.

Have a happy rosé spring and enjoy the tastings!

Valérie Beaulieu
Vignoble Domaine Les Brome