EATING AND DRINKING LOCALLY THE CHEESE TAKES THE WINE. © Gael Arthur 2007
Photographs by Stephen Bonner and Gael Arthur.

The world has changed on a dime. It used to be that we would pay a premium for the tag “imported” on our food, accepting without question the extra cost of sourcing and transporting some exquisite little bite of something. But now, being “green” includes purchasing food and wine that has travelled less and less kilometres. We want local everything and, naturally enough, we are looking for our local products to be superior to anything from anywhere else.

The quest for local and fresh is a North American phenomenon, but some areas seem to support this obsession more readily.

With our temperate climate in British Columbia, Canada’s most western province, we can produce most of the key requisites to eating and drinking well within a few hours’ drive of Vancouver.

This means we can even make the journey to the source, enhancing the feeling of foraging for the freshest and best products.

 

When it came to exploring one small aspect of this local concept by mixing and matching the wines and cheeses of BC, all it took was a short email to spark the idea for an impromptu themed party.

The goal: Determine which BC cheeses work best with a broad selection of BC wines. It didn’t seem like a particularly difficult task and participants were invited on the basis of a few simple criteria – love of food and wine, no lactose intolerance and availability on short notice.

There was a bit more. The key to having a successful tasting event is choosing people who are willing to follow instructions and voice opinions. Strong views make for entertaining conversations. Food and wine are not like politics or religion – it’s hard to find fault with someone else’s taste buds, which are more varied and quirky than hair colour or taste in clothes. Having a few people who don’t know each other also livens up the conversation when you get tired of talking about food and wine.

It’s best to start with the limiting constraint in any food and wine event – in this case, the number of BC wines far outstrips the number of BC cheeses, so cheese was driving the direction of the event.

For the best selection as well as the best advice, Alice and Allison Spurrell of Les amis du fromage are the head cheeses of Vancouver, so it was relatively easy to pass the cheese selection along to them.

I’ll be honest – Allison really did try to keep me from buying so many cheeses. But the names and smells got the better of me and I didn’t want to miss the best cheese for whatever wines happened to be opened at the event.

(Note to self: Listen to the experts – they rarely steer you wrong, particularly if they are urging you to spend less money at their store.)

Then came the wines. The usual problem when you invite people connected to the wine business is an embarrassment of riches.

With assorted wines arriving as the guests did, we all agreed that there were too many wines. The job of culling was almost as difficult as the tasting.

We started with the “must-haves”, including the new releases from Poplar Grove to go with a couple of the cheeses from the same producer (the only winery in BC to also produce cheese). A sparkling is the best way to start any event, so Sumac Ridge’s Stellar’s Jay got the nod. We generally opted for smaller wineries, like Township 7, or small production, like the Sandhill Small Lots program Cabernet Sauvignon. We knew we still had too many to taste, but we were all intrigued by the potential combinations – so, with nine cheeses and fourteen wines, we were ready to start.

It came as no surprise that several cheeses worked well with the Stellar’s Jay sparkling wine. We chatted and sipped, momentarily forgetting that we had another baker’s dozen ahead of us.

It’s fair to say that we all expected this exercise would reveal a few great matches and that the rest would be average. What no one anticipated was that there would be wine and cheese combinations that are, well, awful. Really awful.

It started with the three Rieslings – with relatively fresh palates, we tried a number of unsuccessful pairings. A few faces were made over the petrol notes on the 1994 Domaine Combret. It’s a wine that divided the crowd: (Overheard in the corner, “Wow, isn’t that nose phenomenal, don’t you love the balance in this wine and the way it has kept its acidity?” Over in another corner: “When do you think you would buy this wine?” Answer: “Me? Never. I can’t imagine what food would make me want to drink it. Ever.”) One of the more diplomatic in the crowd suggested that maybe Riesling is an acquired taste.

When it comes to pairing any of the three Riesling examples (all very different stylistically), there is unanimity. This is a wine to pair with anything but these nine cheeses.

 

When pressed to find a cheese we could possibly eat with the wine, we agree that the Little Qualicum Caerphilly works better than most, that the Armstrong 3 years old cheddar brings out the citrus in the Poplar Grove Riesling, while the Harvest Moon washed rind brings out its perfume notes. Everyone is happy to move along to the next flight of wines.

Semillon seems happiest with the Naramata Blue, the Blue Juliette and the Happy Days fresh goat cheese. One of the more intellectual of our little group is clearly thinking when he notes the connection between Semillon and Sauternes and the classic pairing of Sauternes with Roquefort cheese. The rest of us pull up our socks and start thinking a bit more about what we are tasting, wondering if we can make similarly astute observations.

It’s clear this is a serious group – the flavoured crackers are eschewed in favour of plain French bread, which is disappearing at a great rate. The red wine lovers are being patient, as we slowly work our way through the whites. Of course they are patient, we have a terrific line-up of reds, so good that I find myself thinking we should have split this into two events.

Serious, did I say this was serious? Somewhere along the way, for some now-forgotten reason, we decide that the Quail’s Gate Riesling is a St. Patrick’s Day wine, that nachos would be good with several of the wines and that perhaps some of the cheeses would be better suited to a beer and cheese tasting.

We wax on about the terroir, debating whether the food of a region evolves to match the wine or vice versa. And what is terroir in British Columbia anyway? Clearly, it’s time for some sparkling water and a break from the hard work.

The red wines bring more revelations, but happily, there are less frequent occurrences of the disastrous combinations, although the Golden Mile Pinot Noir and the Moonstruck White Grace is a far cry from ideal. The Mt. Boucherie Summit is less fussy, happy with three or four very different cheeses and each sip suggesting more.

The 2003 Poplar Grove Merlot and Cabernet Franc are tight but already show their promise. After a sip of the Merlot, we are all heading for the Happy Days fresh goat cheese. This cheese is astonishing – whether the wine is soft or tannic, a fruit bomb or austere, it seems to accommodate and augment the wine (well, except perhaps the Rieslings…). The other cheese that works well with these young wines is the pale yellow cheddar (somehow, an orange cheddar wouldn’t have worked visually).

By the time we work our way through the reds, the intensity of thought and debate has mellowed and we are moving toward the Jurgen Gothe modified scale of appreciation (starting at “Yum” and ending at “Yuck”). But the overriding wine and cheese discussion focuses on the surprise – who knew that wine and cheese could be so bad together?

We have augmented the food supply with some walnuts and dried apricots and people are retasting. The permutations and combinations become incalculable.

As if it isn’t already too complicated, someone pipes up with: “Do you think the part of this White Grace cheese closer to the rind tastes different than the interior (yes) and how will that affect the wine?” Hmm, it’s probably time to put the coffee on.

A few days later, I report back to the Spurrells of the success of our event – and thank them for selling me enough of the Happy Days. Our little tasting inspired a bit of admiration from Allison, who confessed there was no way she could have tasted that many wines with cheese. Somehow, I have my doubts. After all, this is a woman who recently judged 187 cheeses in one day at an international cheese competition, with only sparkling water to cleanse her palate.

Hmm, I’ll stick with my job any day of the week.
For hints on having your own wine and cheese party, take a look at the tips under “Bon Appetite”.

 

Gael Arthur©

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