What are your first choices if we wonder which cheese to pair with white wine?
At La Cava Chahue, we’ve come up with five white wine and cheese pairings to help you out.
Keep in mind that the best pairing is in your hands because it’s the one that pleases your senses the most.
5 GREAT WHITE WINE AND CHEESE PAIRINGS
1. BRIE
We start these recommendations with the most well-known French cheese: Brie, a soft cheese from the French region of Brie, where it was initially created.
This cheese is made from semi-skimmed cow milk. Rennet is added to raw milk and heated at 37°C to obtain the curd. The cheese is later strained in molds, several cheese layers fill the mold, and it’s later kept for around 18 hours. After that, the cheese is salted and aged for four weeks minimum.
To pair this cheese, we’ve thought about a 100% Chardonnay Broadside wine from Paso Robles Highlands at Valle de Edna on the Central Coast of California. It results in a good combination due to its creamy, buttery, and soft texture.
2. CAMEMBERT
Our second recommendation is from 1791, when Marie Harel created Camembert cheese from raw milk in Normandy, France. There are good Camembert cheese varieties based on pasteurized milk, like the Camembert Le Chatelain.
We are talking about fresh cheese with a soft, hard, and brittle texture. It has no aging and a sweet and milky flavor. As it ages, it forms a soft interior layer and a typical moldy crust. It has a rich and buttery flavor. It has white flowery skin caused by a white fungus.
We’ve tried this cheese with a Juan Gil Moscatel Blanco Semiseco wine from the Jumilla, region of Spain, and we loved it! It has a yellow straw color with greenish and golden hues, with the aroma of stone and tropical fruits, citrus, and white flowers. Very fresh and fruity, with an interesting acidity and the presence of citrus that pair well with the buttery flavor of Camembert cheese, to keep eating and drinking.
3. GRUYÉRE
One of our favorite cheeses is Swiss. We are talking about the Gruyère. It’s a hard and aromatic cheese made with cow milk, with pressed and cooked paste. It characterizes by a grainy and hard crust, although the paste is soft and can be cut easily. It has a somewhat greasy look and ivory to golden yellow color. Its aroma is soft, it’s nutty, and its flavor has slightly spicy hints depending on its ripeness.
We like the combination of this cheese with an Italian white wine from a pinot grigio grape called Sass Ter from the Friuli region. It’s a sparkly straw yellow wine with intense fruity aromas and hints of apple, fruits like lychee, and citrus. It has a dry flavor with some minerality, good acidity, and an ending that remains. It brings out the nutty flavor of the cheese.
4. MOZZARELLA
The term mozzarella comes from the Italian word “mozzare,” meaning to cut. It’s believed that the origin of this famous Italian cheese was Aversa, in the Caserta province. La Mozzarella di Bufala di Campana (buffalo Mozzarella) is a cheese produced in Caserta and Salerno and some municipalities from other Italian regions. Its fabrication starts with fresh buffalo milk (although cow milk is used in commercial versions), which, thanks to rennet and bacteria, splits away from the curd’s whey (the solid part). This curd, once cut into cubes, is heated up. The result is an elastic mass that is molded into balls. Then, it’s stretched and weaved by hand until they make a fist-sized ball. Finally, they’re submerged in cold brine, which gives them the right touch of salt and finalizes the acidification from the bacteria.
As a cheese that’s consumed fresh, we crave pairing it with a French wine from the Alsace region. It’s a sweet wine with great acidity. It’s undoubtedly the best-known wine from Alsace, the León Bayer Gewurztraminer, with exotic aromas of tropical fruits, rose petal hints, ginger, and sweet vanilla. Mango, peach, licorice, and sweet spices flavors. Its sweet and acid flavors will pair perfectly with the greasy and creamy taste of Mozarella.
5. GOAT
There are around 120 goat cheese varieties. The fresher the cheese, the sweeter it will be in your mouth, while the oldest it gets, the stronger the flavor. Generally, goat cheeses are known for their light and creamy texture and potent smell and flavor. Its taste stands out due to its acidity since it contains fatty acids.
A cheese like that goes perfectly with our new option from the La Rueda region in Spain, called El Gordo del Circo. It’s a white wine made 100% from Verdejo grape.
Its color is straw yellow with greenish hints, clean, sparkly, and transparent. Intense aromas first appear as balsamic and varietals like fennel, hay, cut grass, and anise, which give way to citrus notes and white fruit. Its flavor with intense acidity allows for balancing out the potent flavors of goat cheese.
These are only a handful of the many options that exist. And, of course, the best one is the one that pleases your palate the most.
You can find all these wine bottles by visiting our stores in Huatulco and Oaxaca or our online store. You can also visit our new Wine Bar in Huatulco.
In La Cava Chahué, we have the best wine options for your favorite cheeses!
La Cava Chahue