Cheese with Red Burgundy

[Tom Troiano]

What are some good choices for red Burgundy other than Epoisses?

Thanks.

Tom

[David M. Bueker]

Interesting. I tend to stick with harder cheeses with red wine. I find the creamier cheeses coat my mouth too much & really screw up the tasting experience.

Of course if it's a Louis Latour Burg then go for hte creamy, stinky stuff.

[Tom Troiano]

Interesting. I tend to stick with harder cheeses with red wine. I find the creamier cheeses coat my mouth too much & really screw up the tasting experience.

Of course if it's a Louis Latour Burg then go for hte creamy, stinky stuff.

Not sue if you are suggesting Epoissses is a bad choice but to me Epoisses is THE CHOICE for red Burgundy. I already "reserved" one at Formaggio so I was looking for a second option for the cheese course.

Tom T.

[David M. Bueker]

I like Piave

[Tim York]

What are some good choices for red Burgundy other than Epoisses?

I would NEVER choose Époisses to accompany red Burgundy. The soft texture clings to the palate and, IMHO, the taste is so aggressive as to kill any red. A mineral white Burgundy might work better but would hardly be a perfect match.

I agree with David that the best cheeses for red wines (I have tried them with Bordeaux but not Burgundy) are hard textured, e.g. Cantal Salers, fine Cheddar, Gouda, Gruyère, Emmenthal and even Parmesan, provided that they are not too ripe and assertive.

[Tom Troiano]

I would NEVER choose Époisses to accompany red Burgundy.

That's interesting. To me its one of my top ten food and wine combinations.

I'll probably go with one of your suggestions (or David's) as the second cheese.

Thanks!

Tom T.

[Dan Donahue]

Soft: Pont l'Eveque. I have no problem with Epoisses and Burgundy btw.

Hard: Manchego. I like Manchego with everything.

[Jon Peterson]

Soft: Pont l'Eveque. I have no problem with Epoisses and Burgundy btw.
Hard: Manchego. I like Manchego with everything.

...and tou can get a great price on Manchego at Costco.

[Lee Short]

I'm with Dan. Many, many cheeses are too assertive for burgundy. Manchego works well. Also milder gruyere.

[Sam Platt]

Tom,

I know that it is not a popular choice, but I like Brie on wheat crackers with most red Burgs.

[Daniel Rogov]

I'm all for Manchego with red Burgundy but (perhaps reflecting my kinkiness) my own choices are often for Raclette (not on potatoes but on country-style bread) and fried Greek (Cypriot) hallumi cheese.

Best
Rogov

[David M. Bueker]

Costco Manchego is a lousy rendition of a great cheese.

[Bill Spohn]

I would not serve any cheese with red Burg. Cheese mates much better with white wines......

[Frank Deis]

I've tried the match with Époisses several times, and it took a while to dawn on me that it was more of a collision than a match, and that the strong cheese obliterated the wine. Red Burgundy can be rather ethereal stuff, especially when it has some age on it. I would say mild hard cheese or no cheese...

The argument that wine from a certain terroir should match the cheese from the same countryside can be rather compelling but it is not always true. "Ami du Chambertin"??? A false friend.

F

[Dale Williams]

Epoisses and red Burg is always controversial, I tend to like, but usually with something like young village Pommard or Gevrey. Most people like with whites.

I agree with Bill that whites in general match better with cheeses than reds. But I'm generally happy with harder/drier cheeses like aged Gouda, Manchego, or farmhouse cheddar, or semi-firm cheeses like Ossau Iraty , Tomme de Savoie, etc.

[Tim York]

Soft: Pont l'Eveque.

Now that's interesting, Dan. I have just received a birthday present of two Pont-l'Évêque cheeses made by my favourite artisan producer, M. Spruyt. Frankly, red Burgundy (and Bordeaux) are the last wines which I would think of as suitable pairings; Spruyt recommends brut Norman cider or failing that a mineral white; the cider pairing seems plausible to me as it has the right acidity to pierce the creamy barrier on the palate.

Anyway, I have the opportunity to experiment and may try the last glass of a red Burgundy ( a young quite acidic villages one, as Dale suggests) with a mouth-full of P-l'E to see what gives.

[Jeff H]

I like Epoisses with my Pinot Noir, too...

I also like some blues (Bleu de Termignon; Rogue Creamery's Oregon Blue or Smokey Blue) and River's Edge Creamery has some wonderful goat's milk cheeses ("Up in Smoke" is one) that are really nice.

Jasper Hill Farms Winnimere and Constant Bliss also work, at least for me. YMMV...

[AlexR]

We had a Chaource (with it's own A.O.C.) a Burgundian cheese, this past weekend. It is rich and mild and, I'm sure would go well with Burgundy;

Another regional cheese, L'Ami du Chambertin, is, IMHO, the *enemy* of Chambertin, and smells of sweat-soaked socks.
Very strongly so.

Best regards,
Alex R.

[Victor de la Serna]

Red Burgundy with aged comté. Époisses with grand cru, unoaked Chablis - never with a red wine, in my book.

[Frank Drew]

I agree in general that most cheeses go with white wines better than with reds, but red Burgundy works pretty well with gougères (cheese puffs), which are most often made with Gruyère, I think.

[Hoke]

Create a rule to immediately begin discovering exceptions.

Took us years (and we still haven't penetrated to the masses effectively) to debunk 'red wine with fish'. So I don't subscribe to 'white wine with cheese' either.

More a consequence of 'what cheese(s) do I want, and what wine(s) do I want' to serve/drink/eat tonight? With general guidelines only. Otherwise, how you gonna have an epiphany?

If I do think overmuch about the subject, or try to orchestrate a particular course for a particular meal, then I tend to think in terms of weight and force: some cheeses are fat, heavy, creamy, rich, weighty, mushroomy; some cheeses are lean, dry, astringent, earthy. So I try to figure out what wines will likely be on the table---although with the guests I invite, I never really know what we're likely to end up with---and pick two or three categories of cheese, so at least one will likely match whichever wine the person is schlurping at the time.

The way it works in reality, though, is that by the time we get to the cheese course, the Chaos Principle kicks in: there are some cheeses; there are some wines; things happen. Never know what those things will be, but I know it's usually interesting.

Some people overthink things,much to their chagrin at times.

[Tom Troiano]

Hoke,

Great points. By the time we made it to the Epoisses on Sunday we had 3 red Burgs open, some "left over" white Burg and near the end of the cheese course I opened a sweet wine. Everyone seemed to be able to find a cheese and wine that worked for them.

Tom T.

[Bill Spohn]

I think that this question is akin to the old "What wine should we drink with Chinese food?" question.

If you don't really care what effect the food has on the wine, you have a much wider field than if you don't want to do anything to interfere with your enjoyment of the wines.

With the described 'left over' wines, you don't lose much by experimenting. But when you first opened them, is another issue.

When we are going to be tasting some really good wines (1949 or 1959 Bordeaux, for example) the wine is the star and the food we choose is normally selected to be tasty but in no way is it capable of interfering with the wine, which is the star of the night. Which is why I almost flayed and gutted a chef that obviously hadn't got a clue about matching when he hauled out a non-spicy seared tuna dish I figured would have worked with a 1976 German Riesling - and the idiot had rolled the edges of the tuna in cayenne pepper!

[Tom Troiano]

Bill,

When I used the term "left over" I was really referring to the previous course. It wasn't a wine sitting around since last Tuesday.

That said, I totally agree with your point.

This particular dinner was a Kitchen dinner among close friends who enjoy wine but are not wine geeks. Nobody took out a pen and paper to take tasting notes.

I have had tasting dinners in the dining room where people take notes and I completely agree with your "food and wine" philosophy for those dinners. This wasn't one of those dinners.

That said, I do enjoy red Burgundy and Epoisses but I would never eat Epoisses while I was judging 12 Gevrey Chambertins.

Tom T.