Goats cheese and mature Alsace riesling

publication date: Jun 30, 2008

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author/source: Fiona Beckett

Last week I had the greatest cheese and wine tasting I’ve ever experienced conducted by France’s most famous affineur Bernard Antony who supplies cheese to most of France’s top chefs. You’ll have to wait till the article comes out in Decanter in a couple of months’ time for the full details but here’s a star match to whet your appetite.

It was a superb Valençay de Touraine, a goats’ cheese from the Loire which is normally served with a Loire Sauvignon Blanc but which was paired - along with other sheep and goats’ cheeses with - a 20 year old Zind Humbrecht Riesling, Clos St Urbain Rangen de Thann 1988, which was still thrillingly crisp and vivacious.

What is really fabulous about M. Antony’s cheeses is that they are perfectly mature but have none of the complex farmyardy flavours that sometimes get in the way of fine wine pairings. The Valencay was pitch perfect - full and mellow but with lovely acidity and not a trace of ‘goatiness’. A fine cheese and a fine wine.