The phrase “wine and cheese” suggests one of the world’s most enduring pairings, due in no small part to the amazing similarities between the two.
Not only do both emanate from mundane products (grapes and milk), but both are elevated to the sublime by undergoing a similar process to achieve a higher status: fermentation.
Both are also living products with definite lifespans. The best of each display a youthful vitality, a charming middle age, and a slow progression to deterioration.
Then, there is the inescapable fact that wine goes so well with cheese—usually. Here I refer to fine wine and fine cheese, not the simplistic “American cheese” that tastes more like its wrapper.
There are plenty of products called cheese, but many are bland, pasteurized blends. And there are plenty of simple wines, most of them sweet, that have none of the charms we seek in a dry table wine with soul.
Great wine and great cheese may cost more than the ordinary stuff, but there is a reason: Both call for large investments to make small amounts of stellar products.
The best wines and cheeses must be handled with care. Look at storage temperature, for example. Take two bottles of fine wine and two packages of fine cheese and separate them into Set A and Set B. Leave Set A at room temperature for a few days and put Set B in cool storage.
Set A will deteriorate a lot faster.
Almost every cheese you see in a supermarket cold case is wrapped in an impervious plastic wrap. The aim is to keep air away from the product. A few cheeses aren’t hurt too badly by this, but most fine cheeses will deteriorate faster in plastic wrap.
I once met a young cheese shop owner who told me she wrapped everything in plastic. Without it, she said, the cheeses might go bad.
I suggested that some cheeses do best in cheesecloth. She was aghast. What if a cheese got a touch of mold on it? she asked. What if the pristine white brie began to turn brown? she asked.
I honestly had no answer since the question was akin to, “What if an older cabernet had some sediment in it?” Would anyone with wine awareness toss it out? Sediment is an indication of quality.
These days, the best cheeses may be wrapped in special wraps, such as waxed paper, two-part breathable papers, or parchment paper that can breathe.
Such products allow the cheese to “grow” and develop—sort of the way we age wines to allow them to gain complexities that are absent in youth.
Your degree of acceptance of these complexities determines how much you are willing to spend to get them in your wine and cheese.
