Caseophile

What to drink with a fondue??

A serious question discussed in the Figaro newspaper a few days ago by the reporter, Sandrine Cabut. She told of a serious and detailed study undertaken by Swiss doctors to work out what drink made a fondue more digestible.

On the one hand, (white) wine, on the other, (black) tea, with or without a swig of kirsch.

You could have knocked me down with a feather, as I learned that fondue consumed with tea took 6 hours to be half digested, whereas with wine it took 9. Thus alcohol had apparently slowed down digestion considerably... But do take heart, those who had drunk wine + kirsch did not suffer stomach burns or feel bloated any more than the others...

Conclusion ... fifty-fifty: unless you have digestive problems, you can drink whatever you want with your fondue!

A resolution for the New Year perhaps!

Crémant de Loire + Brie de Meaux – What a combination !

It's been some time since I talked to you about this favourite couple of mine ... and it's been a recent tour around the Anjou area which has brought it back to mind.

I went to visit some good old friends – Claudie and Eric Garreau in the domain of the Canal de Monsieur in Saint Aubin de Luigné to the south of Angers. The harvest looked promising, with a month or so to go before their being able to transform solids into liquids. There was no need for much use of pesticides or herbicides this year and to avoid the vines being stressed from insufficient watering, a simple close cropping or weeding of the grasses around its roots had been called for.

Following Eric into his wine store, I stopped in front of some Crémant de Loire sparkling wine. And also a little Cabernet Franc lost in an ocean of Chenin.

;-)

Eric spoke with the greatest of pleasure about the "roundness" which Cabernet Franc gave to his wine, as well as about the particular rules applying to the appellation of a crémant which he considered absolutely indispensible in the production of a top quality wine (hand picking into small open boxes to avoid the grapes "marinating" in an oxydised juice + pressing with 150kg of grapes for 100 litres of juice + ageing on slats for one year minimum) – all this made it clear how much these technical points make a clear difference here in Anjou from a "méthode traditionnelle" ... so I was convinced! I did particularly enjoy his "demi-sec", so I left with a few cases...

Back home in Lorraine, I had to sample this crémant. But what cheese to have with it? No hesitation there, a Brie de Meaux (from Dongé or Collet) 4/4 matured – who could ask anything more?

And yet... today I'm making a Fontainebleau fromage frais (from cow's milk)... and what if another day to go with the fizz, I added to my creation a little candied lavender?? Would you join me in giving it a try??

Red, white and blue … cocorico!

I've not spoken here for a long time about Bleu des Causses … and yet I've a particular soft spot for this magnificent blue cheese, sadly neglected and in decline in recent years. Even the inhabitants of the town of Rodez (they are called Ruthènois), where the vast majority of it is produced are unaware of the fact.

So my "treat of the day" will be:

Bleu des Causses + Rasteau (VDN), a 100% Grenache wine from the Côtes du Rhône.

A happy marriage therefore of blue, white and red – very patriotic for us French – but turn it round (as one usually has to) to red, white and blue for our British friends and they will be happy to celebrate with this delicious composition!

Cheese with coffee

This illustration is borrowed from the American Artisanal Cheese website and it got me thinking of a few ideas I have on this "marriage".

It's not in fact only in the very North of France that cheese is dipped into coffee as a tasty combination! I am in fact thrilled to discover that in the USA there is a cheddar type cheese rubbed with coffee – espresso to be exact – and lavender (!), would you believe? And it's quite a luxury – it costs $31 a pound! It's called Barely Buzzed Cheese and it's made in Utah by the Beehive Cheese Company. From cow's milk of course. And to be exact, the coffee is a mixture of beans from South and Central America and from Indonesia. But the lavender comes from France (Cocorico!) – However it's not clear if it's real lavender or the hybrid lavandin. Read all about it in English on their website.

One piece of advice however: before dipping your piece of cheese in your coffee … buy two very distinctive types of coffee – e.g. an Ethiopian and a Guatemala coffee. And put each of them to the test. And tell me what you think. With an extra ripe Mimolette cheese, for example!

L’Etivaz (a Swiss AOC/PDO cheese) with whisky

Does that raise your eyebrows? Would you ever have the idea of associating a hard cheese with a whisky? However this is exactly what I suggested a couple of weeks ago at a tasting session in Bordeaux.

It was a marvellous marriage…

Why?

First of all let me tell you about Etivaz. A great cheese from the Vaudois Alps. In short, from the end of Lake Geneva you carry on towards Aigle, then still higher towards Château d’Oex (famous for its hot-air balloon contests) and you’re there. It’s ‘that-place-up-there” (le Pays d'En-Haut, in French), the domain of Etivaz.

Moreover, you’ll pass by the village of L’Etivaz (meaning simply “summer pasture”) and stop at La Maison d’Etivaz to discover this great alpine cheese.

Made only when the cows are actually up there in the mountains, so from May to October.

A farmhouse cheese (made by 70 families, each one having at least two alpine chalets at different altitudes) with raw milk of course and above all heated by a wood fire.

30-35 kilos – so about 400 litres of milk are needed to make this cheese which is matured a minimum of 135 days, often much longer, as was the case with the cheese I sampled, made in Summer 2007.

Its aroma had a dominant “smoky” note, due without doubt to the use of wood for heating, often it’s spruce.

More info on the l’Etivaz website www.etivaz-aoc.ch (in English) or the Swiss cheeses site (in French, German or Italian).

So what could be more natural than to marry this cheese with a drink with scents of smoky peat?

For example, why not the whisky I talked about in my preceding article, sampled at the Maison Désiré in Bordeaux?  A marriage of about 50 blends produced by a Belgian, Michel Couvreur … in Burgundy! The internet is full of praise of this Belgian who has a passion for whisky, having actually produced it himself in Scotland, before coming back to France to the Beaune area to create his own blends, using nothing but Scottish spring water to dilute if necessary the alcohol level. (Can you imagine importing tanker loads of water all the way from Scotland?)

Mimolette with coffee

Look at this Mimolette cheese – “extra old” and with its colony of mites – do you see the “dust” on this black plate … it’s moving ;-)  so just go ahead and break it up into small pieces using a special hard cheese knife.

Then just dip it into a cup of your favourite coffee.

But don’t leave it in there to melt!

And you’ll see just how different your coffee tastes. And how about replacing your square of chocolate with a piece of mimolette?

Now a question for true gourmands: would you prefer dipping your mimolette into a cup of Ethiopian Moka Sidamo or perhaps a Guatemalan Arabica?

Wine with cheese – the debate warms up

The award winning film and stage actor, Pierre Arditi, definitely goes for white. In a recent newspaper interview he was forthright:

 “The mania for always drinking red wine with a cheese is heresy. Cheese goes with white. Just try it to see why”

Thanks, Monsieur Arditi. It’s just what I try to hammer home in my workshops and soirées … tannin just hates the casein and penicillium (blue mould) in cheese and the mix tastes metallic.

Pierre Arditi knows what he is talking about. He’s a lover of traditional cheeses, as I found out in a previous life when I came across him while working on a “Comté” cheese campaign.

Roquefort and white port

For years it has been a habit to associate Roquefort with Sauternes wine.

Roquefort is a marvellous cheese made with ewe’s milk, as you all know (I hope!), and ewe’s milk is quite fatty, twice the level of cow’s milk. And Roquefort when it’s truly ripe is almost creamy and melts in your mouth.

The fat in the cheese in contact with “fat” sugar taste of a syrupy wine is something you’re bound to like! I can guarantee that if you – as I did some years ago – are able to taste this mélange in the cellars of the Combalou (the mountain that looks over the village of Roquefort sur Soulzon), it’s just magic.

And so it has been thanks to Xavier Thuret, Meilleur Ouvrier de France in 2007, that I discovered another duo – and one I prefer – Roquefort and White Port

 Indeed not any old Roquefort… go for Baragnaudes – from Société des Caves. And did you know that this word means “fairy’ in the Occitan language?

And last but not least... have you ever tried a Rhubarb wine + Roquefort ?? De-li-cious...

Jasnières and Tête de Moine

I have rediscovered a forgotten wine … Jasnières, thanks to Eric NICOLAS from the Bellivière domain.

Jasnières, well I have known of this appellation from the banks of the Loir (without "e") for several years. 61 hectares. A Chenin PDOsince 1937 (check in at vinsdeloire.fr)

The first one I tried – almost 15 years later I still remember it! – came from chez Bénédicte de Rycke at Marçon, a “Louise” vintage, named after her daughter. I learn today on 75cl.com in my research for this article that she had only just set up her operation at that time (in 1989).

And would you believe it, last week my “food and wine advisor” in the rue Saussier Leroy in the 15^th arrondissement of Paris presents to me to accompany a charcuterie and cheese platter (a real feast, I say in passing… you’ll just stay with me for a second, I trust… even his white ham has a great taste!!) he presents another Jasnières. The one from the Bellivière domain, a “les rosiers” vintage 2005 and coming from Eric Nicolas.

Certainly too young to have a complete palate of aromas, as this wine can be easily kept for 15 years. On his website, Eric Nicolas calls it “sec tendre” (softly dry). And it’s true!

I tried it later quietly at home, firstly by itself – to get the most from its broad range of aromas (very fruity) then accompanied by a Swiss Tête de Moine then – well it was Swiss sort of evening, wasn’t it? – with a Vaudois sausage (in French only). A moment of pure pleasure.

And to begin that evening, I allowed myself to be tempted by my wine merchant with another product from the Bellivière domain, called “Myriade de Bulles” (bubbles) An astonishing strong peppery start due to the pineau d’Aunis vine in a sparkling rosé. Add to that, some very grapefruity aromas… to go very well with as many stuffed black olives as you wish.

This is a strong recommendation to go and visit this little known region of the Sarthe department… and this Bellivière property will go totally organic this year. To be drunk in moderation...Have you already seen the "Rosiers" has an alcoholic degree of 13.5°...

Crottin de Chavignol + Sancerre

A very classic combination many of us would say.
Yes.
Of course.
BUT not any old Crottin, nor any old Sancerre.

I had a feast last week with a “blue” Crottin from the Dubois-Boulay company and a white Sancerre, “The Secret of Terres Blanches” from Alain Gueneau.

Why? Well firstly because what it comes to this Crottin, you’re dealing with the oldest cheese producing house of Chavignol, founded in 1896. And this “blue” Crottin from Chavignol, as its name implies, is covered in blueish and grey moulds, with a good strip of proteolysis under its rind. I was not able to photo this particular one but the shot here is the “bleuté” (blueish) version and not the “blue” one: i.e. 3 weeks’ maturing rather than 6…

As for the wine, because the “vieilles vignes” (old vines) 2006 vintage of Alain Guéneau is so round and fruity. Really very, very pleasant on the palate, it goes far beyond your “everyday” Sancerre.

And lastly, because thanks to these two fermented products coming from the same soil, well, 1+1=3 … because you find new aromas delighting your palate.

So just look out for the fiddler on the label – he’s the emblem of Dubois-Boulay!