The Cheesemonger’s Tales
ARTHUR CUNYNGHAME
An eclectic mix of delightful anecdotes and helpful information, based around a personal selection of twelve of the finest cheeses,
and the people who make them,
matched with twelve memorable wines;
and much more.
SNAPSHOTS OF MY LIFE IN FOOD & WINE
It wasn’t so much that I wanted to be a wine merchant as that I couldn’t be a film producer. Having left school with three ‘A’ levels and the usual batch of ‘O’ levels and deciding I didn’t want to go to university, I sat down, like a great many 17 year olds, to try and decide what I did want to do. Film producing was one thing I definitely did fancy, due partly, I suppose, to my father’s involvement with Alexander Korda, the great Hungarian producer, and my mother’s acting career playing a number of roles, chief of which, as far as I could see, was Queen Victoria.
It soon became apparent that I was not going to be the new David Lean as I so fervently hoped. It seems to me now, that other people recognised something I failed to see myself; that, much though I longed to be in films, I didn’t have the absolute and total commitment which is necessary to sustain one through the inevitable disappointments which are such an integral part of the entertainment business before, if one is lucky, the ‘right’ vehicle arrives to boost ones fortunes and self confidence.
It was therefore through a lack of anything better to do that I agreed to ‘help out’ my brother, John, at MacDonald Hall & Co Ltd over Christmas 1968 and into 1969. At that time the company was really a vehicle for any business which might profitably be undertaken; selling steel to Greece, dealing with the Saudis, marketing pneumatic tools, and of course wine! Over the years that followed I was lucky enough to pursue a life in wine and then cheese.
John and I bought the wine business. I was determined not to have a desk job and was happy enough for a time assembling and delivering orders and doing a bit of everything. It was good fun and what a way to learn about business.
The life to which I aspired was that of most of our suppliers. They arrived in their offices at about 10, did a little work, went out to lunch at 12 and that was more or less their day. They might have returned to their office for a post prandial snooze between 4 and 5 but the only time I could get hold of anyone in authority was for 2 hours each morning.
Of the many tastings, which I attended, there is no doubt that one of the most special was the annual tasting given by H. Sichel & Son, actually in their cellars underneath London Bridge railway station. The cellars were transformed from working cellars, by the installation of candelabra, and tables spread with white linen cloths and fine silver. The wines didn’t usually disappoint either.
After 4 years of running the wine business with my brother, we decided that it was time one or other of us knew something about wine! I volunteered to go off and work in the vineyards of France for 6 months.
In 1977, we bought a business in Leamington Spa. It was a wine company run in the former malthouse of the old Thornley Kelsey brewery. The parent company was about to close the business and make everyone redundant. They seemed quite surprised and pleased that anyone should want to buy it! However, the buying involved them paying us to take it off their hands. I moved to Leamington to run it.
We sold the wine business to the hotel giant, Trusthouse Forte. It was the first time I had worked for a large company; too much politics, too little assumption of responsibility, too much bureaucracy, too little encouragement of initiative.
I bought a cheese business at the end of the 1980’s. Rachel & I ran it from our house, with storage in two refrigerated containers at my mother-in-law’s farm just over the hill. From that we progressed to a shop in Stratford-upon-Avon.
Rachel and I enrolled in night classes to learn the basics of cheesemaking. We went to a fabulous old Victorian dairy (part of Worcester Agricultural College). There were beautiful ceramic tiles on the walls, and a high ceiling with louvered vents to allow the room to stay cool. I discovered that cheesemaking is an enticing mix of art and science. The best cheeses are works of art, but the making is based on science.
I had the opportunity to buy the venerable old firm of Paxton & Whitfield, which was going through something of a lean patch. We built the business and Paxton & Whitfield became, once more, respected for its quality.
Judging at cheese competitions in Britain and France was part of my life as a cheesemonger as well as conducting many cheese and wine master-classes, including two in Tokyo.
Many people put in a lot of effort at Paxton’s and it was a singular honour to be granted Royal Warrants first to The Prince of Wales and then to The Queen. Then the time came to sell and I accepted an offer for the business.
CONTENTS
The chapters follow the order of cheeses I like to use for tutored tastings, ranging from the milder flavours towards the stronger.
Each cheese is matched with a wine, and I have included general information throughout the book.
Title Page
SETTING THE SCENE
Matching Cheese & Wine
Cheese & Wine Parallels
Cheese & Wine Master-classes
Wines to go with Cheeses
Cheeses to go with Wines
Flavour & Aroma
Maps
AT THE SIGN OF THE GOLDEN CROSS
Golden Cross
Top goats’ milk cheeses
Reflections from the Loire
Pouilly Fumé Domaine Michel Redde
Buying cheese
Serving Cheese
A FARMHOUSE IN THE NORTH OF ENGLAND
Mrs Appleby’s Cheshire
Delightful Crumbly cheeses
Meursault Clos du Cromin
Seasonal Cheeseboards
A CHALET IN HIGH ALPINE PASTURES
Beaufort d’Alpage
Special mountain cheeses
Champagne Pol Roger
Cheese Families
PARTNERS ON THE TABLES OF LYON
St Marcellin
Light creamy cheeses
Juliénas Domaine Matray
Cuisine a la Lyonnaise
Keeping cheese at home
Today’s Food
FRANCE LOSES A WAR: THE WORLD GAINS A CHEESE
Brie de Meaux
Deliciously creamy soft cheeses
Chinon Domaine Joguet
Appellation Contrôlée
The Pasteurisation Debate
ITALIAN TAPAS
Parmigiano Reggiano
Nibbling cheeses
Dry Oloroso Sherry: Pata de Gallina
Cooking with cheese
A WINTER’S TALE
Mont d’Or
Château Chalon Domaine Berthet-Bondet
The Hygiene Police
A MODERN CHAMPION
Berkswell
Stunning sheep’s cheeses
Fonseca 20-Year-Old Tawny Port
How to Make Cheese
Cheese rinds
Organic cheeses
A STINKER FROM DIJON
Epoisses
Full Pungent cheeses
Pinot Gris: Vendange Tardive Kuentz-Bas
Fat content of cheeses
THE QUINTESSENTIAL BRITISH CHEESE
Montgomery’s Cheddar
Hard farmhouse cheeses
Classic Claret: Château La Garde
Cheesemaking in Britain
The British Embassy, Paris
My star British Cheesemakers
THE CISTERCIANS: CHEESE’S GREAT BENEFACTORS
Cîteaux
Monastery-style cheeses
A word about additives
Burgundy
To dinn
er at Lameloise
Clos de Vougeot Domaine René Engel
WEARY TRAVELLERS NAME A CHEESE
Stilton: King of English cheeses
Piquant blue cheeses
Taylor’s Vintage Port
THANK YOU
GLOSSARY
INDEX
Plates
Copyright
SETTING THE SCENE
Matching Cheese & Wine
Cheese and wine are perfect partners and the right combination can add to the enjoyment of both. During the time I owned Paxton & Whitfield Ltd, the cheesemongers, I conducted many tutored cheese & wine tastings, including two in Tokyo which proved enormously popular. In this book I have attempted to capture the essence of what proved so popular on so many evenings.
Balance is essential in pairing cheese and wine. Neither should overpower the other; their strength of flavour should be roughly equal. If a cheese has a particularly complex set of flavours, as most great cheeses do, often the wine which matches it best will be a relatively simple straightforward one; two sets of complex flavours are sometimes too much to cope with. One of the first things I came to realise is that, although some red wines are magical partners to certain cheeses and ports can be especially good, white wines are often the best match for particular cheeses. Now, that is all very well in a tutored tasting but the problem comes in eating cheese after a main course when red wine has been served. Moving to a lighter wine from a heavier wine does not provide a pleasant sequence, so we tend to serve red wines. I find the answer then is to choose a cheese or cheeses which will complement the red wine. If the main course has been light and accompanied by a white wine, then it is very satisfactory to continue with white wine for the cheese, provided the right style of cheese is chosen.
When seeking to match wines with cheeses, it is as well to be prepared for many surprises. There are few hard and fast rules and just when you think you know a wine which will partner a cheese perfectly, it turns out to be a disaster; and when you think a combination is likely to be poor, you are often pleasantly surprised. Nonetheless, over the years, I have developed several rules of thumb. Wines which work well with cheese tend to have: good fruit (often with a touch of sweetness, though not too raisiny), good acidity (which is essential to cut through the fat of the cheese), and low tannin. Wines which are difficult with cheese are those with high tannins or too much oak.
Grape varieties are often a better guide to good or bad combinations than geographical origin but, having said that, cheeses and wines produced in the same region are often, literally, made for each other.
I have found that the grape varieties which tend to go well with cheese include: Pinot Noir, Cabernet Franc, Semillon, Viognier, Riesling, Muscat and Gewurztraminer. Difficult grape varieties include, perhaps surprisingly, Cabernet Sauvignon and Chardonnay.
Cheese & Wine Parallels
As well as being perfect partners on the table, cheese and wine closely mirror each other in their production. Climate and soil have an effect on both. The breed of animal can be said to equate to the grape variety and the stage of lactation of the animal has parallels with the age of the vine. What the animal is fed loosely corresponds to the pruning of the vine. And so we have our ‘raw material’, milk and grapes. Whilst milk differs every day, winemakers can consider themselves fortunate that they have only one vintage a year. Although the actual cheesemaking process is different from winemaking, there are, nonetheless, parallels. Finally, we come to the ageing or maturation which, of course, applies to both cheese and wine.
Cheese & Wine Master-classes
One of the first Master-classes in Cheese & Wine Matching, which I conducted, was with George Sandeman of Sandeman’s Port. The cheese and port pairings were superb and set the theme for many successful future tastings.
In 1997 Peter McKinley and I did a fascinating tasting of cheeses with various spirits. Some of the flavour matches were superb but I was left with the feeling that more liquid was needed to wash down the cheese than was provided by the spirits – unless one was going to get very emotional indeed.
Over the years The Wine Society produced some splendid wines to accompany my cheeses and we held the tastings in some glorious venues – including the Assembly Rooms in Bath, a particularly splendid setting.
One of the most interesting tastings I conducted was with Remi Krug; certainly a tasting to blow away misconceptions. Krug Champagne went magnificently with cheeses which I least expected, and was less successful with those I thought would work well.
Tastings with Berry Bros always seemed as near perfection as one could wish. For a start, the approach of the two firms was very compatible; secondly, Lance Jefferson and I seemed to strike up a very congenial and effective way of working together; and most importantly, the quality of the Berry wines shone through to complement my cheeses. These were happy events and they were always sold out. Most were conducted in Berry’s splendidly refurbished cellars under 3 St James’s Street. It was always a pleasure to walk through their doors and breathe in the sense of timelessness which permeates the place. However, we also took our show to Japan, where two tastings at The British Embassy and The Tokyo America Club were outstanding successes.
Wines to go with cheeses
Hard Mild Cheeses such as Wensleydale and Cheshire go well with many white wines such as a Sancerre, Pinot Blanc and Chardonnay and light, fruity reds such as a Beaujolais or other Gamay wines.
Hard Mature Cheeses such as Cheddar and Gruyère go well with fuller whites such as Viognier or Gewurztraminer, sweet whites such as a Quart de Chaume or medium reds such as a bold Cabernet Franc, Merlot or Cabernet Sauvignon.
Soft Cheeses such as Brie de Meaux and Camembert are especially good with Red Burgundies or other Pinot Noir wines, Cabernet Franc wines from the Loire like Chinon and the lighter fortified wines such as a 10 year old Tawny Port.
Full-Flavoured Pungent Cheeses like Epoisses or Pont L’Evêque are usually well suited to sweet whites such as Pinot Gris Vendange Tardive or Sauternes, full-bodied reds like Châteauneuf-du-pape and fortified wines such as Vintage Port.
Blue Cheeses such as Stilton, Fourme d’Ambert, Gorgonzola and Roquefort find natural partners in most sweet whites especially Sauternes, full bodied reds such as Barolo, and fortified wines especially Vintage Port.
Goats’ Milk Cheeses such as Valençay, Crottin de Chavignol and Golden Cross are ideally matched to crisp dry whites such as Sauvignon, occasionally to fuller whites like Pinot Blanc and light reds such as Chinon.
Sheep’s Milk Cheeses such as Wigmore and Berkswell are perfect with a 20-Year-Old Tawny Port, fuller whites, sweet whites such as Côteaux de Layon and some medium reds such as a Tempranillo.
Cheeses to go with wines
Crisp Dry White Wines such as Sauvignon, Chenin Blanc Sec and Riesling are ideal with goats’ cheeses like Golden Cross and Valençay as well as mild hard cheeses like Wensleydale.
Full White Wines such as Chardonnay, Gewurztraminer and Viognier go well with hard cheeses like Double Gloucester and Parmigiano Reggiano, some full-flavoured pungent cheeses, and many hard sheep’s and goats’ cheeses.
Champagne, if it is full-bodied, can be enjoyed with many hard cheeses especially mountain cheeses like Beaufort and Comté, as well as some of the full-flavoured pungent cheeses such as Maroilles.
Sweet White Wines such as Semillon and Chenin Blanc Demi Sec are natural partners to most blue cheeses especially Roquefort, some mature hard cows’ and sheep’s cheeses and full-flavoured pungent cheeses such as Munster.
Light Red Wines like Pinot Noir, Gamay and Cabernet Franc go well with soft cheeses such as Brie de Meaux and St Marcellin, hard mild cheeses such as Cheshire or Red Leicester, and a few goats’ cheeses.
Medium Red Wines like Merlot and Cabernet Sauvignon go well with British hard cheeses such as Cheddar and Single Gloucester.
Full-bodied Red Wines like Syrah and Grenache go well with full-flavoured pungent cheeses such as Pon
t L’Evêque and many blue cheeses like Fourme d’Ambert and Gorgonzola.
Light Fortified Wines like White Port and Old Tawny port are good matches for mild hard cheeses from all milks and many soft or crumbly cheeses.
Full Fortified Wines such as Vintage Port are, perhaps, the most versatile, going well with cheeses such as Stilton, other blues, full-flavoured pungent cheeses, some soft cheeses, certain goats’ cheeses and hard nibbling cheeses.
Flavour & Aroma
Describing flavours is one of the hardest things to do. Firstly, you have to have a good memory for what you have tasted before and secondly, you need some lateral thinking to link the flavour of a cheese with the flavour of, say, a fruit or a vegetable. Here are some descriptive words, which you may find useful.
LACTIC
Fresh Lactic Fresh Milk, Curd, Cream, Butter
Acidified Lactic Yoghurt, Whey, Sour
Heated Lactic Melted Butter, Boiled Milk, Rancid
VEGETABLE
Grass New mown grass, Hay, Silage
Herbs Tarragon, Basil, Thyme, Coriander, Mint
Spices Clove, Nutmeg, Pepper, Chilli
Fungal Mushrooms, Truffle, Mouldy
Boiled Vegetables Cabbage, Celery, Peas
Root Vegetables Potato, Parsnip, Beetroot, Carrot
Bulb Vegetables Onion, Garlic
FLORAL
Flowers Rose, Violet
NUTS
The Cheesemonger's Tales Page 1