Wine and cheese pairing was my job for almost twenty years. I worked at smaller Gainesville wine and cheese shops before becoming a wine consultant with ABC, and though I miss selecting and cutting to order, I am very impressed with the quality and range of cheeses that we provide for our guests at ABC Fine Wines and Spirits. So let’s play a little pairing game with some of my current favorite cheeses, and maybe create a great meal option for a busy weekday evening. All you would need from the supermarket would be some fresh grapes or mixed greens, since we also sell a fine selection of cured veggies and olives, bruschetta toppings like tapenades, and gourmet crackers. With a couple of artisanal cheeses and a bottle of fine wine, you’ve got a complete meal in no time at all.

 Sartori, from Wisconsin, makes a fine array of Italianesque cheeses. One was a real surprise for me, as I’ve never had a cheese that brings coffee to the table: Espresso Encrusted Bella Vitano. Yes, they use ground espresso beans to encrust the exterior rind of the cheese. At first I didn’t feel comfortable with the idea, even though I use coffee or mocha to describe dry red wines all the time, but to have that flavor with cheese? I’m accustomed to vegetable ash rinds, or cheeses wrapped in sycamore leaves or pepper-encrusted and herb-rind cheeses, but espresso? Then I tasted it, and I was hooked. If you sample the cheese blind you might not come up with espresso as the extra flavor component, but once you know what it is, it makes sense. The base cheese, Bella Vitano, tastes like a cross between Cheddar and Asiago, salty and dense, but not as salty and dense as the aged versions of either Cheddar or Asiago. The espresso gives a nice earthy richness to the cheese without overpowering it, leading me to pair with denser red wines that have hints of coffee or mocha flavors. Our new Block 77 Old Vine Zinfandel is one of those wines, with ripe and juicy characters at the forefront that merge into spicy and smoky flavors on the palate, with hints of mocha and licorice. Consuming the two together will bring out the subtler coffee flavors without overwhelming your palate with coffee, since there are so many other flavors to both the cheese and the wine. Spanish Garnachas would also pair very well with this cheese and even some Aussie Shirazes, though the South African Graham Beck Shiraz comes to my mind as a wine with mineral and coffee notes. Because of the espresso encrusting I’m thinking red wines would pair better, but almost all cheeses go better with some wine, and vice versa, so there is rarely a bad wine and cheese pairing.

 Sartori also makes a Merlot-cured rind Bella Vitano, reminiscent of Spain’s Drunken Goat, but with a cow’s milk-based cheese. This Bella Vitano has a little more acid bite, since it’s been cured in red wine, which colors the exterior rind. My first thought is to go red, since the cheese has Merlot as a curing agent. Hart and McGarry 2008 Merlot (for about $13 per bottle) is an excellent choice, since it has a little more acidity than some of our other Cali Merlots, which makes it a very food friendly wine in my book. An Italian wine like our new Nicolis 2010 Valpolicella (for about $13 per bottle) would also pair very well, bringing its own acidity to the table, but with an elegant finish and softer tannins than other Italian wines. The Italian-themed flavors of this Bella Vitano cheese works with a whole range of Italian wines including some of our dry rosé wines from Italy (or other rosés from Spain and France). Both of these Sartori cheeses are $6, but they promise much more flavor than your usual supermarket fare, and therefore more enjoyment in pairing with our fine wines.

 A cheese that might pair a little better with white wines would be our Kerrygold Blarney Castle from Ireland. This is basically an Irish version of Dutch Gouda (no Blarney to that statement), but it has more character than some of our domestic Gouda-like cheeses. It is a milder, softer cheese than the first two from Sartori, and can work fine with softer reds like Beaujolais or my favorite bargain Pinot Noir, Fog Bank, but the perfect pairing would be with a nice Chardonnay. I might choose an Un-oaked Chardonnay like the Paradise Sound, or just an “Old World”-styled Chardonnay (with less new oak) like the Ma Fleur 2010 Chardonnay from France’s Pays D’Oc (for $11 per bottle). This wine reminds me of much more expensive white Burgundies, with good acidity, but it also has a pear and green apple component that is very food friendly, especially with this mildly nutty, yet creamy-textured cheese.

 As I said before, pretty much any cheese improves by consuming with wine, and pretty much any wine improves by consuming with cheese. Part of the fun is experimenting with different cheeses to see which pairing is your perfect match. Odds are you will enjoy the experimentation and not feel that a specific pairing hurt the flavors of the wine or vice versa, even if it didn’t pair quite as well as another. Now you understand why the French love to serve a cheeseboard, or a selection of artisanal cheeses, to enjoy the complex interplay between wine and cheese, a pairing they’ve been honing for over two thousand years. Enjoy!

 Daniel Eddy,  Wine Consultant for ABC in Gainesville, Florida (Newberry Road)

Dan's also the Wine Pairing Examiner for Examiner.com in Gainesville: you can read more of his choices at http://www.examiner.com/wine-pairing-in-gainesville/daniel-eddy