The big decision after the main is whether to go sweet with dessert or head onto a cheese plate. If you’re French you’ll do both – a range of smelly and oozy soft cheeses first then the dessert, both usually paired to a sauterne.
But amongst our friends there’s a movement away from sweet dessert wines and a preference to continue drinking reds right though until the end of the night, usually progressively heavier. So this leaves us with a bit of dilemma. What wine do we move to and what do we pair it with?
At our the recent Wine Matchmaker Glen Eldon Wine Dinner we made the bold decision not to have a traditional dessert but instead to finish with a Trio of Tasmania Cheeses.
We made this decision for three reasons. First it would be much easier to plate up and serve for our first wine dinner. Second, Glen Eldon don’t have a wine to match dessert to, and we knew guests would want to continue drinking the reds. But the third and most important reason was prompted by our sampling Glen Eldon’s 2004 Cinnabar.
I’m not a big sparking red drinker – it has to be a pretty special wine to hold my attention. You could argue that many sparking red wine makers do so because their red is not up to sufficient standards so they carbonate it. But this is a sparkling red with a difference. First, it’s a Merlot, and despite whether you’re a fan of ‘Sideways’ or not, it’s a good one. Second, it’s made in the method champenoise manner, so the it has fine beads of bubbles and a creamy texture on the palate. And right there is your hint for matched food … creamy palate – perfect with a cheese plate.
In our cheese trails (and there was a bit of it) we chose the following Tasmanian cheeses: Gruyère and tilsiter. And we also selected a Tasmania goats chèvre. We served the cheeses with zwieback (a Swiss crisp bread) and muscatels for a little sweetness. The hard cheeses went perfectly with the Cinnabar, less so the goats chèvre which we had not previously tried and it was also the least favourite of our guests.
There’s nothing much to plating up this dish. Slice your cheese, arrange on a plate with the condiments. Simple and easy. Next time I serve this wine I’ll replace the cheese with Swiss imported cheese and switch the goats chèvre for a Swiss Apenzell or Jura Mountain (or both!) I’ll also replace the zwieback with toasted sourdough. Naturally a little quince paste wouldn’t go astray either.
You can buy real imported Swiss Cheeses vacuum packed in convenient 150g portions from FromArt. Owner Christian Nobel imports the wheels of Swiss Cheese and ages them in his cheese room until they’re ready to eat.
Ingredients
150 g of any 3 of the following cheeses:
- Swiss Gruyere
- Swiss Apenzell
- Jura Mountain
- Le Baron
- Mont Soleil
- D’Alpage
A loaf of fresh sourdough
Muscatels on the stem
Quince Paste
Method
Cut the sourdough into thin slices
Toast the bread then let cool so it’s crisp
Slice the cheeses into appropriate sizes
Arrange ingredients on the plate
Time: 10 minutes
Serves: 6 for dessert
Best Wine Match: 2004 Glen Eldon Cinnabar Sparkling Merlot
By : Sigrid de Castella (AKA Mrs Wine Matchmaker)