SACRAMENTO, CA
Chardonnay is not always the easiest wine to pair with cheese. In large part, the pairing is dependent on how much oak taste is in the particular wine you are drinking. I selected a moderately oaked Chardonnay, which pairs best with mild, semisoft cheeses. Also, blue and more assertive flavors can work well with the oak finish.
Wine:
Chardonnay, Lava Cap Winery, El Dorado, CA, 2012.
Cheeses:
Spring Hill Jersey Cheese's Raw White Cheddar
Somerdale's Tintern
Pennyroyal Farm's Boonter's Blue
From left to right: Pennyroyal Farm's Boonter's Blue, Somerdale's Tintern, Spring Hill Jersey Cheese's Raw White Cheddar
Spring Hill Jersey Cheese's Raw White Cheddar, from Petaluma, CA: A mild white cheddar with a crumbly texture when cut. This made for an excellent pairing with the Chardonnay. Its mild taste perfectly complimented my glass and left me feeling satisfied. My advice for Chardonnays is to avoid complex flavors and instead indulge in cheeses with more mild tastes like this one.
Somerdale's Tintern, an English cheddar with chives and shallots: This cheese was awesome! It paired well with my wine, but I imagine it would go well with many things. Its taste reminded me most of a baked potato. In fact, it would probably go well on a baked potato. The Tintern had a buttery texture and delicious rich taste that was unlike any other cheese I've experienced. Highly recommended.
Pennyroyal Farm's Boonter's Blue, a raw sheep and goat's milk blue cheese from Sonoma: The goats and sheep graze on the farm and vineyard's wild grasses and pennyroyal mint. This blue cheese had a distinctive herbal taste in addition to its blue flavor. The minty taste reminded me most of rosemary, but I've not tasted pennyroyal mint so maybe that's a closer match. In any case, it paired moderately well with the wine and I found the cheese to be very different than other blue cheeses I've tried, with a mild blue taste that is not overpowering complimented by its unique herbal notes.
Be sure to check out The Wine & Cheese Corner next week, for new wine & cheese pairings and reviews.
Spring Hill Jersey Cheese
Somerdale
Pennyroyal Farm
