Hard cheese-

Posted on | January 25, 2006

Having spoken to Philippe Marques for our People in Wine programme just before Christmas and learnt that Alain Senderens the great French chef had spent his whole life trying to tell people that red wine and cheese don’t go together, it was interesting to see these results confimed in a more scientific way. Incidentally Monsieur Senderens made an exception – wines fom Bordeaux go wonderfully with Saint-Nectair. Saint-Nectaire wasn’t used in the study mentioned below and one can only imagine because it is as hard to find in California as it is almost everywhere else. I love it, but I can think of only a handful of shops where they sell it. In other parts of Europe outside of France it is also very hard to come by.

Prof. Hildegarde Heymann (UC Davis) kindly sent me a draft of her paper entitled “The sensory effects of Consuming Cheese prior to evaluating Red Wine Flavor‘ (see note 1) – yummy! The gist of the research was to see how cheese influences the taste of wine using a variety of grapes – Cabernet Sauvignon, Merlot, Pinot Noir and Syrah – and a variety of cheeses (except Saint-Nectaire). By the way, the academic references to this experiment is a fascinating bibliography of research into the whole subject of tasting.

The conclusion I hope I might be permitted to quote:

“Overall, the study showed that the tasting of cheese prior to evaluation of wine brings about a decrease in most of the characteristic wine attributes, such as astringency, oak flavor and aroma, and berry flavor and aroma. Also, an enhancement is caused in at least one attribute, namely butter aroma. Contrary to common perception, the cheese and wine pairing translates into wine character suppression more than enhancement. Also, it was seen that although there is an effect of pairing wine with cheese, the red wines maintained the same overall sensory profiles relative to each other- However, it is clear from these data and from the work by Nygren and co-workers (2001, 2002, 2003, 2004) that the effect of cheese on wine flavor is likely not as large as is often stated in the popular press and that it certainly does not seem to be enhancing wine flavor. The authors feel that the practical significance of these results are that one could probably enjoy any cheese of ones liking with any red wine that one likes.” Oops! Monsieur Senderens won’t like that a bit.

However, there is also another way of interpreting the data. I give you my Wine Compensation guide for those bottles which you may pull from your cellar and perhaps don’t quite match up to your expectations :

- If the wine you are drinking is too berry-like in flavour for your taste, drink it with a blue cheese like Gorgonzola.
- If there is too much oak in your wine, cheese will help to diminish it, except if you pair it with an Insalata Caprese (Mozarella, tomato and avocado).
- Mushroom odours are considerably diminished by associating the wine with cheese.
- If a dried fruit aroma is displeasing you then a hard cheese like Gruyère should diminish this flavour.
- Perception of vegetal aromas are reduced by eating cheese with your wine.
- And if your wine be sour than cheese is just the ticket – it diminishes the flavour considerably.

Of course, if you want a smooth buttery taste to your wine then hard cheeses – like cheddar and Gruyere - will work wonders in enhancing this character.

This is, of course, a gross over-simplification for my readers and I ask the authors’ apologies.

Would someone now like to prove that white wines go better with cheese? I’ve drunk Champagne and and munched on Parmesan for years. And everyone (?) knows that sweet wines are the ideal accompaniment to blue cheeses and cows’ milk cheeses in general. The importance of a study such as the one here discussed is that it debunks much of the so-called received wisdom about ‘taste’. More, please.

Fabian Cobb

Note 1: Paper’s authors: Berenice Madrigal-Galan, Graduate student and Professor Hildegarde Heymann, Department of Viticulture and Enology, University of California, Davis.

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