Pairing Cheese with Wine: The Acid Test

“What wine would go well with this cheese?”

We get this question a lot. Everyone loves the classic combo of wine and cheese, and serving the two together is pretty much a no-brainer. But picking out which wine goes with which cheese is much more challenging. There are so many cheeses and wines to choose from, how can you tell if the ones you’ve picked out are meant to be together?
 
And make no mistake—there are a lot of unhappy cheese and wine couples out there. Sometimes the cheese is the culprit: some cheeses are so flavorful that they overpower most wines. Epoisses, a great French stinker, is traditionally paired with red Burgundy (always made from Pinot Noir), but I’ve never been able to make the pair work. The Epoisses always overpowers these delicate Pinots, and I’m left tasting nothing but cheese the whole way through. Frankly, I think the best wine to go with this cheese is probably beer! A nice, full-bodied ale, such as Ommegang Abbey Ale, would probably do the trick.
 
Sometimes the culprit is the wine: some wines just aren’t very cheese-friendly. I have a hard time finding a match for some California Cabernet, the real fruity, oaky ones. In wine-speak, I would say that they lack some of the structural elements necessary to pair well with cheese. In normal-person-speak, I’d say that they just don’t play well with others, and I end up with an exhausting mish-mash of cheese and wine flavors in my mouth.
 
So what’s the key to a happy cheese and wine marriage? There are no hard and fast rules, and trial and error plays a big part, but with our many years of hard work and research (read: drinking lots of wine and eating lots of cheese!) we have some suggestions to help you along. I’ll be sure to post more later on, but here’s one to start you off: high acid wines tend to be cheese-friendly.
 
You know that tingling you get on the side of your tongue when you drink some wines? That’s the wine’s acidity, and it helps a wine from being overpowered by a cheese. We often pair lighter, high acid whites (like Picpoul de Pinet) with rich and moderately flavorful cheeses (like Moses Sleeper)—the acidity cuts through the milk fat and cleanses the palate, and the richness of the cheese actually adds a little extra body to the wine. The two complement each other well.
 
More on wine and cheese pairings to come later. There are so many great combinations out there, so be sure to experiment, and let us know what works for you!