Towards the end of my ten-year career as a radio station disc jockey, I worked for a friend who had started up a ‘smooth jazz’ station in Fresno, California. I had taken a job as public relations manager for a game software developer in the Sierra foothill town of Oakhurst and I guess I still wanted to keep my foot in the door I guess, or rather keep my headphones on.
It was the late 1988, so lots of Enya, Pat Metheny Group and of course, Kenny G. The gig did not last more than a few months because after 10 years of working almost every weekend on-air, I decided the lure of being a semi-celebrity in Fresno was less than the lure of two days off in a row every week.
Thirty years later I’m working weekends again, but now I’m picking wines for Kenny G rather than playing his guilty pleasure jazz, but I’ll explain that in a bit. First, why does cheese go so well with wine and what should I think about if I host a wine & cheese party this weekend?
Over the past two weeks, in between watching my daughter graduate from college and tending bar at a party in her honor, I taught several Wine & Cheese classes. Except for the lactose intolerant crowd, wine & cheese is one of the most requested classes I do. Plates of Cheddar, Gruyere, Manchego, Gouda and my favorite, the Dubliner, were piled high and passed around to taste with the likes of Chardonnay, Zinfandel, Rioja and Cabernet to name just a few. One of the attendees said it was the best class he had attended in three years of coming to my classes. I think it had less to do with my skills as an instructor/showman and more to do with the cheese and wine I served, but I’ll take the credit.
One thing I always suggest when you are pairing cheese and wine is location. Trace the roots of the wine you are drinking and then pair it with a cheese from that area. If we are talking Cabernet & Chardonnay, whose origins are in France, then look for French cheese. For Parmigiano-Reggiano, think Italy and more specifically, Tuscan wines like Chianti, Brunello and Vin Noble di Montepulciano. Rioja, well, you could do a lot worse than a Spanish Manchego. Location, location, location works every time.
One of the classic pairings we did was a Sauternes from Bordeaux and Blue Cheese. I realize you may not be a fan of the stinky cheese that looks moldy (trust me, it is moldy) or a wine that has literally dried on the vine with fungus forming on the grapes, but you have not lived until you have tried them together. Trust me; I’m a semi-expert on wine and cheese, and I checked with Wikipedia, and they agreed.
If you do your own wine and cheese pairing at home, make sure you have lots of bread or crackers on hand as a palate cleanser in between pairings. Ditto on water, bottled, tap or otherwise. A plate of fruit, dried or fresh would be great and make sure the cheese is in small bite-sized portions. Now I got complaints because I did not serve chocolate in my last two classes like I normally do, but I’d skip the chocolate and focus on the cheese.
The other thing to consider is that while there are classic pairings of wine and cheese, try going rogue; try every cheese you have with every wine and you might find some new pairings that work better than the ‘classics’. Oh, and one more thing; Easy Cheese in a can, Cheese-Its crackers and cheese balls that come in a giant plastic tub have no matching wine, unless it comes in a box.
And Kenny G? He was playing in Orange County a few months back and a harried event staffer stopped into to my shop with his concert rider which required Bordeaux & Chablis for Kenny G. I asked if all the brown M&Ms were removed, and they had been, but they needed good wines for Kenny’s entourage. I helped them with a few selections and sent them on their way forgetting the whole incident. Last week that same event staffer stopped by for a special birthday gift for his dad and mentioned my wine selections were a hit with Kenny G. So, I got that going for me, which is nice…
WINE-A-PALOOZA Wines of the Week – Cheese & Cracker Edition
So, I have two great wine & cheese pairing wines this week; one is a great value and the other is just great.
Like quotes from Caddyshack on a golf course, I hear quotes from Sideways all the time in my wine classes, the most famous regarding if anyone orders Merlot seems to be the most popular. Well, here is a great tasting Merlot for under $10 that is perfect with cheese. The Summit Estates Merlot is full of ripe plums, sweet strawberries and plump black cherries. A jammy, balanced, and a great bargain.
I think I have mention my admiration for Philippe Melka before, and I’ll testify again today to his skills as a winemaker. Meli Melo means a mishmash or a hodgepodge in French, and Melka’s 2014 Meli Melo shows his skill as a master winemaker, blending grapes from some of Napa’s best vineyards. Honestly it is a steal at $60. Enjoy!
#philippemelka #melimelo #summitestates #melkawines #kennyG #wineandcheese #smoothjazz
Wine-A-Palooza 