Mark's March
Irish Cheeses, Wine, and Beer Pairings:

Cashel Irish Blue Cheese and Late Harvest Zinfandel

Cahill’s Porter Irish Cheese and Guinness Stout

Columns to Savor
Mark Todd

Brie de Meanx with Gruet Sparkling NV Brut and French Morbier Cheese with Saison Farmhouse Ale

Aged Gouda Cheese and Belgian Dubbel Beer, and Fourme d’Ambert and
Côtes du Rhone Wine

Cheeses of the Alps: Allgäuer Bergkäse with Alsatian Pinot Blanc, and Appenzeller Cheese with Bock Beer

Cheeses of the Alps: Chiantino Cheese and Altbier Beer, and Hirtenkäse Cheese and Gewürztraminer Wine

Spanish Wines and Cheeses

History of Beer, Cider, and Mead: Cheese's Other Companion Beverages with two pairings

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Mark Todd.

Get more information on great Alpine and specialty cheeses at Fond O' Foods.

Cheese Expert
Mark Todd

Irish Cheeses

In honor of St. Patrick’s Day, this month we are featuring two beautiful Irish cheeses and at least one Irish beverage. Guinness and Cahill’s Porter is a no-brainer; a match made in heaven (which is somewhere in County Cork, I believe). I looked hard for an Irish beverage to pair with the Cashel Blue, but Irish whiskey overwhelms the cheese and stout beer brings out a bitter edge. I ended up traveling to the EXTREME West Coast of Ireland to find a Late Harvest Zinfandel from County Sonoma.

In the past thirty years, Ireland, and particularly Irish cuisine, has undergone a renaissance of staggering proportions. Once considered the backwater of Europe (if considered at all), Ireland has come into the new millennium with a bang. See Margaret Johnson’s excellent book “The New Irish Table” for details. Fortunately, Ireland’s burgeoning prosperity brought with it a renewed appreciation for the country’s culinary heritage, including its cheese-making tradition. The Irish Farmhouse Cheesemakers Association is a great resource for those seeking to learn more.  Go to their website to see the wonderful array of fine artisan cheeses produced in Ireland today. Better yet, go to Ireland and experience first-hand the breathtaking beauty and heartwarming hospitality that is the Emerald Isle.  

Cheese and Wine
Pairing

Cashel Irish Blue Cheese and
Late Harvest Zinfandel

The Cheese
Cashel Blue began as a way for Jane and Louis Grubb to use the surplus milk from their County Tipperary dairy. First produced in 1984, Cashel Irish Blue was originally made in a used 20-gallon copper brewers vat, in batches of just eight wheels per day. Today, the family (with the help of almost a dozen local staff) produces around 200 tons of Cashel Blue per year. They still use the same procedures and hand labor to create one of Europe’s finest farmhouse blue cheeses.

The bulk of the milk used in Cashel Blue is from the Grubb’s own herd of pedigreed Friesian cows, with the rest sourced from local Tipperary dairies. The milk is pasteurized, but not homogenized, and the rennet is vegetarian and non-GMO.

Cahill’s Irish monastic cheeses are a fixture in Ireland and the United States today. While not nearly as huge a production outfit as Kerrygold (makers of Dubliner, etc.), neither are they a mom-and-pop outfit. In business for about a hundred years, Cahill produces a line based on a mature cheddar-style cheese flavored with porter, Irish whisky, wine, herbs or chives.

The Plain Porter is made using porter brewed on-site by Cahill’s, from an old County Limerick recipe. This cheese is striking in the case, with a distinctive marbled look that results from adding the dark porter to the cheese as the curds are knitting back together.