The best wine matches for Comté

After a recent visit to the Jura I've rethought my ideas about which wines make the best wine pairings for Comté cheese.

We were guided through a tasting by flavour analyst Claire Perrot who suggested a couple of matches I wouldn’t have thought of - Champagne and Alsace Pinot Noir. And since then I've been back and tried a couple more (see my update below)

Comté is France’s most popular AOP (Appellation d’Origine Protégée) cheese by a significant margin selling about twice as much as its nearest rival Roquefort.

It’s a cooked pressed Gruyère style cheese which in fact used to be referred to as Gruyère de Comté. Individual wheels vary hugely though I found them in general more caramelly, nuttier and slightly less salty than Gruyère but less fruity than Beaufort though there will obviously be differences between winter and summer cheeses - summer cheeses being fuller-flavoured than winter ones.

The French tend to eat Comté fairly young which makes it an unchallenging partner to a wide range of wines including reds. Once it’s older, nuttier and more intense you may want to veer towards whites or some of the other suggestions below:

Local dry Arbois whites
The classic local terroir-based match. Most of the ones I tasted were a blend of Chardonnay and the local Savagnin grape which gives the wines a nutty, slightly earthy, mineral character which chimes in perfectly with the cheese. I suspect old Muscadet, which I've been tasting recently, would work well too.

Vin Jaune
Arbois’ distinctive sherry-style white is a fantastic match for 12-18 month Comtés. And on that basis so is ...

Dry(ish) sherry
Amontillado and palo cortado being the two wines recommended by the Comté website although since I’ve successfully paired dry oloroso with Gruyère I suspect it would work well with Comté too. (Sherry is more sympathetic to Comté than port, I think.)

Champagne
The big surprise. I tasted a biodynamic Champagne from Lassaigne, les Vignes de Montgueux, which was just delicious with a 15 month old winter Comté. Vintage Champagne I suspect would be fantastic with older Comtés still.

Aged or minerally Chardonnays
On the basis that Arbois wines containing Chardonnay work well others should too, particularly mature Chablis and other mature Chardonnays such as this one from Kistler that struck gold with a 56 month Comté. You wouldn’t want the oak influence to be too pronounced though.

Old white Bordeaux - an 18 year old Domaine de Chevalier Pessac-Léognan was stunning with both 2 and 4 year old Comtés at a tasting I did with affineur Bernard Antony a few years ago.

Alsace Pinot Noir
I really liked a 5 year old 2006 Schueller Pinot Noir with a fresh, milky six month old Comté but the local Poulsard grape works well too

Mature - and immature but not overoaked - Languedoc reds . . .
A surprise perhaps but I’ve drunk Languedoc Syrah - young and old - successfully with youngish Comté.

. . . and mature Spanish reds
I've had striking success with a 9 month old Comté and an 8 year old Navarra red from Chivite. Mature Rioja reservas and gran reservas of course, should work too.

So a number of different possibilities which indicates that Comté is a pretty easy-going cheese which earns its place on a cheeseboard. The common factor in the most successful pairings however seems to be age. Mature wines seem to work particularly well. The wines I’d hesitate to pair with it are high alcohol new world reds with a lot of jammy fruit and intensely herbaceous whites like New Zealand Sauvignon Blanc which I don’t think would work as well. I don’t think rosé does Comté many favours either.

September 2015. On my latest visit to Fort des Rousses I discovered two other really good pairings for a full-flavoured 3 year old Comté Juraflore: a 2002 vin de paille and a MacVin du Jura, a curious blend of savagnin juice and must and brandy which tastes like a cross between a dessert wine, a grappa and a whisky!

Image © bluesky6867

The best wine and beer pairings for savoury pies

We Brits don’t need much encouragement to eat pies—they’re a staple of comfort food culture. But when it comes to enjoying a drink with your pie, the question arises: which is the better match—wine or beer? The answer, as always, depends on the type of pie you’re talking about and the flavours it brings to the table.

Steak pies with gravy
Almost always better with a strong ale or porter in my opinion.

Steak pies with red wine sauce
Should work with any full-bodied red. I normally tend to favour Languedoc or Rhône-style reds but a new world red like a malbec or an Australian shiraz would work well too

Chicken pies with a creamy filling
I’d go for an unoaked or subtly oaked Chardonnay, old vine Chenin Blanc or any other smooth dry white. Cider and perry also work well with chicken pies.

Pies with a tomatoey filling
Whatever the other ingredients I generally find cooked tomato works better with wine than with beer - I’d suggest an Italian Sangiovese or a Tempranillo-based red like Rioja, especially if there’s chorizo in it.

Cheese and spinach pies
I generally prefer crisp whites such as Sauvignon Blanc or even a more neutral white such as a Picpoul de Pinet with a light vegetarian pie like this but a light red like a Beaujolais would be delicious too.

Fish pies
Pair with the same sort of wines as creamy chicken pies.

Cold pies
With a classic pork pie I’d always go for an English bitter. A cold game pie however is a great match for a good red burgundy or Pinot Noir.

Photo © Richard M Lee at Shutterstock

What to pair with artisanal cheddar?

By artisanal cheddar, I mean cheddar that is mature, full-flavoured, and unpasteurised (learn more in this post: So what makes a great cheddar?). It isn't the easiest cheese to match with wine.

One’s instinct is to drink red but it’s a struggle. You don’t want anything too light and graceful or, conversely, too full-bodied and tannic. There can be some wild flavours in a cheese like this which I think are best matched by an equally artisanal wine - and old Syrah/Shiraz, Grenache or Mourvèdre, maybe - or a blend of all three. Or a good Zinfandel. But don’t introduce blues or smelly washed-rind cheeses to the cheeseboard as well.

Vintage port is surprisingly - or not so surprisingly - good as we confirmed at a cheese and wine tasting I conducted for Decanter last year. One associates it more with stilton but it’s equally good with a fine cheddar. But it’s not the type of wine to open with a ploughman’s or other light lunch.

That distinction goes to a traditional British ale which I’m not sure isn’t the best pairing for this kind of cheese, especially if you serve it with an onion pickle or a chutney. Something like Adnams Broadside or Young’s Special. If you find British beers too bitter a sweeter-flavoured American IPA may be more to your taste, being a classic example.

If you’re looking for a terroir-based match a farmhouse cider would be the obvious choice for an authentic Somerset cheddar, especially if you serve it with apples or an apple chutney. Personally I prefer a medium-dry style but that’s up to you.

Apple-based aperitifs or digestifs such as Pommeau and Pomona which is made by the Somerset Cider Brandy Company can also work very well. Obviously they’re more alcoholic than cider but you could serve them instead of port for after dinner drinking.

Other possibilities, less mainstream: a full-bodied oaked Chardonnay pairs surprisingly well with cheddar as does a good rich whisky like The Macallan or Famous Grouse. Sherry can also work well particularly if you serve your cheddar with nuts - I’d choose something like a palo cortado. Other possibilities would be a medium-dry Madeira or a 10 - or 20 - year old tawny port.

See also: The Best Wine Pairings for Cheddar Cheese

Image by SplitShire from Pixabay

Which wines and beers match best with Chinese food

With Chinese New Year coming up this weekend you may be planning a trip to a Chinese restaurant or planning a Chinese meal at home. But which wine to serve?

I’ve talked to Chinese chefs and food writers about their own personal preferences and you’d be surprised how many of them reach for a full bodied red rather than the floral whites that are usually recommended. My own personal failsafe recommendation if you want to pick just one wine is a fruity rosé - the Merlot based ones from Bordeaux such as Château de Sours are perfect.

Better still treat a Chinese meal like any Western meal and serve a lighter wine with the lighter dishes and a more robust one with more robust dishes such as glazed ribs or dishes in black bean sauce

• Delicate dishes such as dim sum and steamed or stir-fried vegetable dishes

Champagne or sparkling wine is the ideal answer with dim sum - both the steamed and deep fried variety, especially when stuffed with shellfish. It also goes well with lighter stir fries and steamed fish and vegetable and with the more delicate flavours of Cantonese food.

A clean minerally citrussy Sauvignon Blanc (rather than a grassy, herbaceous one is also a good match with seafood - just as it is in other cuisines - and dry Rieslings such as those from Germany, Austria and Alsace work well with these kinds of dishes too.

• Sweet-sour dishes

This is where off-dry wines score best and why fruity rosé works so well. Even those who don’t like White Zinfandel concede that it’s in its natural element with these types of dishes. Aromatic whites such as Riesling, Pinot Gris and Austrian Grüner Veltliner are good matches as is Argentinian Torrontes. And if you’re feeling extravagant ‘rich’ Champagnes like Roederer’s and Veuve Clicquot’s also handle sweetness well.

• Duck

The wine-friendliest dish of all in the Chinese repertoire, fabulous with lighter reds such as Beaujolais (or the very similar Australian Tarrango) and Pinot Noir as well as more intensely flavoured Merlots (including Merlot-dominated blends from Bordeaux) and lush Australian Shiraz. (The latter two wines benefit from a couple of years of bottle age to mellow the tannins)

Duck is also in my view the best partner for Gewürztraminer which can overwhelm some of the more delicate elements of a typical Chinese meal.

• Powerful dishes with sticky sauces

Such as glazed ribs or crab in black bean sauce. Here fruity reds again come into play. When leading Chinese Food writer Ken Hom introduced a range of varietal wines to go with Chinese food a couple of years ago he picked a Mourvèdre and a Grenache, both big wines but without excessive tannins. Ripe fruity reds certainly tend to deal best with the hotter, spicier dishes like Szechuan beef

If you prefer a white wine consultant and MW Peter McCombie who has worked with a number of oriental restaurants favours rich waxy Pinot Gris from Alsace, Oregon or New Zealand which he has found works with tricky-to-match customers such as eel and black beans. He put together the list at London’s fashionable Bar Shu

Another Chinese restaurant where the wine list is exceptionally well thought out is Hakkasan where buyer Christine Parkinson pairs all the wines she considers with food before she puts them on her list

Which beers match best
I haven’t done as much research on beer as I have on wine with Chinese food but I’ve found that light wheat beers such as witbiers and Bavarian weissbiers generally work well with Chinese-style snacks such as prawn dumplings and spring rolls and can also handle sweet and sour flavours.

Belgian ‘brune’ beers like Leffe Brune are a good match for duck with hoisin sauce. Dishes like glazed ribs or beef in black bean sauce also pair well with brown ales and Belgian triple beers.

And what about tea?
The Chinese drink tea all day long, just as we would drink water says Edward Eisler of specialist importers Jing Tea and that obviously includes meals too. With lighter foods he recommends a green tea like Dragonwell or jasmine tea like Jasmine Silver Needle. Fried or heavier foods go well with aged teas like Puerh while rich and sticky dishes like ribs benefit from a dark high-fired Oolong tea such as Great Red Cloak.

Image credit: Cats Coming