Mark's Picnic Cheeses, Wine, and Beer Pairings:

Ossau-Iraty Cheese and
2006 Sinskey Vin Gris of
Pinot Noir

Teleme Cheese and
Kölsch Beer

Columns to Savor
Mark Todd

Spring Cheeses: White Stilton with Lemon Zest and German Hefe_Weisse Beer, and Blue Stilton with Australian Tokay Wine

Irish Cheeses: Cashel Irish Blue Cheese and Late Harvest Zinfandel, and Cahill's Porter Irish Cheese and Guinness Stout

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

Picnic Cheeses that Celebrate Summer

Dig out the swim trunks and haul out the halter-tops—summer has arrived! At least it has here in Redwood County, CA, where we’ve already enjoyed our first 90-plus degree days. Summer means picnics, and the pairings offered here should definitely be eaten outdoors in the company of a few close friends, or better yet, just one CLOSE friend. Let the summer fun begin!

Cheese and Wine
Pairing

Ossau-Iraty Cheese and 2006 Sinskey Vin Gris of Pinot Noir

The Cheese
The Pyrénées mountains have been home to Basque shepherds since long before recorded history began. No one really knows where the Basque nationality originated, and no language in Europe is related to nor derived from the Basque native language, Euskari. In short, the Basque are an enigma. The only certain thing is, they make great cheese—and have been doing so, unchanged, for a very long time.

When considering the truly ancient great cheeses of the world, Swiss Emmental, Italian Reggiano-Parmesan, English Cheshire and French Cantal all come to mind. Pliny the Elder of Rome described Cantal in the first century BC; Hannibal’s generals wrote of Parmesan and Emmental in the diaries of their journeys over the Alps about 250 BC. But none of these come close to the history of the Basque cheeses, which date back more than 4,000 years.

The Cheese
Teleme (TELL ah may), or more precisely Tamales Bay Teleme by the Peluso family, is a cheese dating back to the early part of the 20th century. It was around this time that the Peluso family immigrated to Northern California from Crete. Homesick for their native cheeses, the family modified a recipe for a Cretan goat’s milk cheese called Touloumi to accommodate the abundant cow’s milk available in America. The resulting cheese is an American original and worth searching out. It comes in two packaging options, the more modern cry-o-vac pouch that looks like rindless Brie, and the original rice flour coating. If available, always go for the rice flour version, but the bag version is quite acceptable.