What’s better than cheese and wine? Tasting cheese and wine on Nantucket Island. For eleven year foodies and chefs from the region ferry to The Natucket Wine Festival for four days of wine and food seminars and tasting.This year we were really excited to be invited to present a cheese and wine pairing seminar. “Why not talking about the 2 cheese countries that I love so much: France and Vermont!” Hence the title, “ A world of Cheese from the Tour de France to the Vermont Cheese Trail.”
Talking about those cheeses is the easy part for me. Getting pictures from the cheesemakers of their cheese production, the landscape, the cows, the creamery was a piece of cake. But then what about the wine!!!!!
Well, I could say that we “almost have” our own Sommelier in house! Ed Peterman, husband of Karen, our Boston sales rep, is a Sommelier for Domaine Select Wine Estate. They import and distribute exclusive wines from all over the world.
I enrolled Ed in preparation for the seminar. So then we started to talk real business – Cheeses were picked – 1 cheese per category of “fromages”- Bijou and Bonne Bouche
- Reblochon and La Fleurie Camembert (from Willow Farm in North of VT)
- Comté and Grafton 4 years old Cheddar
- Roquefort and Green Mountain Blue Cheese Gore-Dawn-Zola
Then Ed’s magic came to action!
He started to pair the blue cheese with a Muscat from a very small winery in France called Chateau de Jau, a nice Sancerre with the aged goat cheeses, a very deep and powerful red wine from Sicily COS Cerasuolo to pair with our 2 kings of cheese “the comte and Cheddar”.
After the dull roar of mmmms and ahhhhs I knew that this discriminating audience got their money’s worth. We try to stay away from too many rules when he pair wines with food. There is always a stand out winner. That day it was the Chateau de Jau Muscat and the Roquefort.
A perfect pairing, a perfect weekend event. Life is good for this French cheesemaker “en Amerique”.
Check-out the video: http://nantucket.plumtv.com/videos/cheese_wine_winning_combination
