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

Fiscalini Cheddar Cheese with Chimay Ale, Peres Trappist
Cinq Cent

Legendairy Blue Roomkass
Cheese with J. Lohr Beaujolais Wine

Columns to Savor
Mark Todd

Picnic Cheeses that Celebrate Summer.

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.

Read more about
Mark Todd.

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

Cheese Expert
Mark Todd

Great Summer
Picnic Cheeses

It is July; the nights are short and warm, the days are long and hot and a young man’s fancy turns to…BEER! No better time to enjoy what is, in my humble opinion, the King of Summer Beers: Belgian Tripel. This month we pair the Chimay Trappist Monks’ Tripel, “Cinq Cents,” with Fiscalini Farmstead Cheese’s 30 month Natural Bandaged Cheddar. This is a no-brainer, and one of the most satisfying pairings around.

For our wine geeks, we have rooted out the best hot-weather red wine made in America, J.Lohr’s 2005 Valdiguié. We’ve teamed it up with a Dutch cheese, Blū Roomkaas, to create a blue cheese pairing that’s not at all traditional, but undeniably fun!

Cheese and Beer
Pairing

Fiscalini Cheddar Cheese with
Chimay Ale, Peres Trappist Cinq Cent

The Cheese
The Fiscalini Cheese Company is only about 7 years old (founded in 2000), but John Fiscalini’s history with dairy and cheese making goes all the way back to Switzerland of the 1700’s, where his ancestors ran a dairy and cheese making operation. John’s family has been in the dairy business in California for generations, and John always wanted to make cheese. In 2000, he teamed up with cheese maker Tom Putler to develop his first cheese, San Joaquin Gold—a semi-hard cheese in the Parmesan/Asiago family. The following year, John coaxed Mariano Gonzalez, a superb award-winning cheese maker originally form Paraguay, into coming to California to work with the fledgling company. The resulting cheeses, their 18 and 30 month Natural Bandaged Cheddars, are spectacular!

Fiscalini’s cheddar is made in the traditional English milled-curd method, in 60-pound cylinders wrapped and aged in cheesecloth. This is a true farmstead cheese, meaning the cheese is made on the same property where the animals are raised and milked. It contains no additional coloring and no artificial anything.

The 30 month cheddar is so intense, it may be beyond the palate of some. But I think most of us really appreciate a gastronomic delight of this complexity. At once creamy and crumbly, this raw milk cheese exhibits a broad array of flavors from beefy and brothy to fruity and earthy. In short, this cheese reminds why cheddar is, as quoted in Monty Python’s famous cheese shop skit, “the single most popular cheese in the world!”

Of note to cheddar lovers: Cheddar is not only the name of a cheese; it is also the name of the town and the gorge in Southwestern England in which the cheese was first made and aged. The term “cheddar” also refers to a step in the cheese making process in which moisture is pressed from the cheese using the weight of the curd itself.

The Cheese
The Blue family is my favorite in all the world of cheese. If you are a regular reader, you’ve probably noticed there’s a blue cheese covered almost every month. Today features a relatively new blue coming out of the Legendairy (love that name!) cheese company in Holland, simply called Blū. This is a blue-veined Roomkaas (Rohm-khass); a Gouda-style cheese with extra cream added.

Most of the Dutch cheese sold in America is basic Gouda and Edam (pronounced KHOW-da and EH-dom), sold young, mild and a little disappointing. This is a shame, as these cheeses are far superior when given the chance to age. The Blū, by contrast, is a relatively young cheese that is full-flavored and rich, with a dense texture for a blue. Because it starts life as Roomkaas, this cheese is pressed—hence the firm body that so distinguishes it from most other blues. The bluing is more subdued, at least visually, than you’d find in a Roquefort or a Cabrales, but it certainly comes through on the palate. I love this cheese for its firm, creamy texture and piquant rush of sharp blue flavor.

Created for Barbara Admas
Beyond Wonderful
by Cheese Expert,
Mark "The Cheese Dude" Todd.

Barbara Adams Beyond Wonderful features large recipe collections of full-proof quick and easy recipes, classic family favorites, global cuisine, and party ideas. Get illustrated cooking tips and techniques,cooking for beginners, food features, and expert advice on baking, cheese, produce, and wine.

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