Match of the week

Wigmore cheese and 13 year old Pouilly Fumé

Posted by Fiona Beckett (Google+) on November 7 2016 at 13:30

It’s still not widely recognised that white wines have the capacity to age, particularly wines that are noted for their freshness and bright acidity so it was fascinating to try a range of older wines from the Centre-Loire yesterday with a range of different cheeses.

The combination which stood out for me was a 2003 Pouilly Fumé Prestige from Domaine du Bouchot* which had developed a lush, tropical, passionfruit character you’d have more readily associated with a New Zealand sauvignon blanc - astonishing for a wine of this age (13 years old).

The cheese I thought it worked best with it was not a goats cheese a well matured Wigmore, a Camembert-style sheeps cheese. It was served with a drizzle of honey which picked up on the ripeness of the wine. (2003 if you remember was a very warm vintage)

Goats cheese would have been the more usual pairing with wines from this region so it was interesting to discover that a sheep cheese worked well too. Conversely one of the specialist cheese sites cheese.com says that Wigmore goes well with Cabernet Merlot. I’m not sure that would be my first port of call (if I wanted a red I’d probably go for a pinot noir) but would be interesting to try it out.

* You can buy a 2015 Domaine du Bouchot Pouilly Fumé from Ocado for £13.49 instead of £17.99 until midnight tomorrow GMT. Not the same cuvée but might be worth a whirl.

I was hosting the event at Bell's Diner in Bristol for Les Vins du Centre Loire.

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