Cheese (Continued)
While every little village in the Pyrénées makes cheese, they all use the same techniques and recipe, so there is little or no distinction between producers. The cheese suggested here is called Ossau-Iraty Brebis Pyrénées, shortened to Ossau-Iraty (OH-so ear-ah-TEE). Ossau is a river and valley in the region, and Iraty is the name of a river, a forest and two towns, one in France, the other in Spain.

Made with raw sheep’s milk from mid-December to about mid-July, this cheese is nutty, sweet, fruity, earthy, even olive-y. The texture is creamy-crumbly with numerous small irregular holes, similar to Colby or Havarti. The color should be a pale straw, and even from rind to center—never graying or browning around the rind. If the cheese has little white crystals or granules on the surface or has expelled oil in the wrapper, it has been mistreated and will not be in prime flavor. This cheese is always used as a table cheese, not an ingredient in a cooked dish.

The Wine
 When you say Rosé or Blush wines, you almost invariably see wine snobs’ noses wrinkle into a sneer. The ubiquitous White Zinfandel of the 80’s has turned most people’s minds against these wines, and that is a crime.

Almost every wine grape in the world (with about five exceptions) has “white” juice. Even if the grape looks red (Zin, Cab, Merlot, Pinot Noir etc.), the actual juice is not. The color in red wines comes from extended contact with the skins during fermentation. If you press the fruit prior to fermentation to remove the skins, the resulting wine is anywhere from pale straw to quite dark pink, but NOT red.

These wines can be made in any style from off-dry or slightly sweet to bone-rattling dry. My favorites are made from Pinot Noir grapes. The 2006 Sinskey Vin Gris of Pinot Noir is an excellent example of the drier style. The wine is made without using a stemmer-crusher to first remove the stems, meaning the whole clusters are pressed to release the juice with minimal contact with the skins. This results in a wine that barely meets the qualification as a blush. It is the palest of pinks, more peach than pink. The fruit comes from the Carneros region that straddles Sonoma and Napa counties where they meet the San Pablo Bay (the northern part of the greater San Francisco Bay). This region produces fruit that is characteristically lighter in flavors than its Russian River neighbors. It has bright, fresh aromas of strawberry and lychee, and flavors of canary melon, green apple and cranberry—all backed up by a bracing acidity that makes this wine perfect with almost any course. Though the wine carries 13.9% alcohol, you would never know it; this wine is superbly balanced.

The Extras
This is a summertime pairing so I recommend simple complements like fresh apples (fairly sweet such as fuji) and pears (red bartlett or bosc), and a nice sourdough baguette. You can also add salty items like Spanish serrano ham or prosciutto and almonds (here I prefer the monumentally commercial Blue Diamond smoked). In any event, the most important extras are a close friend and a warm afternoon!

Why it Works
This wine has enough acidity to stop you in your tracks. In fact, it could be too much were it not for the creamy richness of this cheese. The two just marry on your palate to form a unique new array of tastes. The apples and pears join in the sweet-tart cavalcade of flavors emanating from this superb wine, while the sheep’s milk cheese coats your tongue with its sweet, rich, earthy character. The ham and the nuts just add to the complexity, accentuating the mild earthiness in the cheese.

Read about Mark Todd.

Created for Barbara Adams Beyond Wonderful by
Mark "The Cheese Dude" Todd.