Treeton Estate » Food notes

Ewes milk blue cheese paired with Chenin Blanc

John — Sun, 25 Jul 2010 13:08:36 +0000

Preparing a casual Saturday dinner for friends, we tasted Meredith Dairy ewes milk blue cheese, walnut and slices of pear with a glass of Treeton Estate 2009 Chenin Blanc.

While commonly paired with sweeter dessert wines, this beautiful Australian cheese is a perfect match with the passionfruit and pineapple finish of Treeton Estate’s bright, and highly-polished wine.

This hand made soft blue cheese is matured in controlled conditions and offers exquisite earthy but mild blue mould flavours reminiscent of the French Roquefort cheese.

Meredith Dairy (Victoria) is an award-winning on-farm family enterprise, milking year round and processing a large range of specialty Cheeses.

Meredith cheeses are brought into Western Australia by DELI Divine and sold through their outlets in Subiaco, Claremont and Kingsley.

Wine and cheese together

John — Thu, 24 Sep 2009 07:41:24 +0000

Like wine, cheese is made through a fermentation process that creates a range of attributes that relate to their components, texture and flavour. Creating a cheese that may have a salty, tangy or bitter taste and a texture that can range from smooth and velvety to hard and crumbly. Flavour can vary from mild to sharp, subtle to intense, grassy to spicy and pungent.

The differences we discover when we taste a cheese may result from any part of the process – from fermentation to ripening to aging – but usually involves a combination of all three.

And like wine, cheese is a living thing that can change significantly during the aging process. Changes occur both as planned by the producer and later, while the cheese has been packaged for distribution. Like wine, cheeses can range from fresh, young and simple to aged, mature and complex.

Why do wine and cheese ‘work’ so well together?

At one level, wine clears the palate both by a ‘washing’ effect and through tannins and alcohol increasing the production of saliva. So alternating wine with food helps cleanse the palate for more wine.
At another level, the fat, proteins and acid of the cheese combine with acids and tannin in the wine to soften the impact of acid, bitter and astringent tastes on our palate.
Finally, the dilution of alcohol when wine is consumed with food promotes the release of more complex aromatics that stimulate our sense of smell and create a more pleasant finish to the wine.

Over the coming months, we will be working with DELI Divine in Subiaco to bring you some special (and unusual) cheeses to experiment in pairing with the Treeton Estate wines.

John Simmonds

Wine and cheese pairing: DELI Divine

John — Fri, 11 Sep 2009 03:23:57 +0000

Similar to the theory that “red wine goes with with meat and white wine with fish”, an old adage of wine and cheese pairing is that “red wines go with hard cheeses and white wines go with soft cheeses”. But just as there are exceptions to the ”red wine with meat” rule, there are exceptions to the “cheese rule”. Even the experts can’t agree on any absolutes in this wine and cheese pairing game.

And their is another complication. Cheese and wine are constantly changing due to aging, vintage and processing techniques. So our own judgements must be a guide through this maze of matching uncertainty.

The matching affinity between most wines and cheeses allows a match to work most of the time. But experimentation offers us the chance to get that ‘perfect match’, the ideal pairing for each Treeton Estate vintage, at the time of bottle opening.

To help us with the experimentation, we have paired up with DELI Divine in in the Crossways Shopping Centre, Subiaco (behind the Post Office on Rokeby Road). This gourmet delicatessen is the brian-child of Michael Donald and Yvette Jones. It offers a range of the finest gourmet meats (natural and smoked), cheese (local and imported) and antipasto products and a selection of the most delicious and decadent preserves, cooking ingredients and accompaniments that you are ever likely to see.

Specialising in ‘cheese from the wheel’, DELI Divine stocks cow’s milk, goat’s milk, sheep’s millk and buffalo milk varieties. A reputation for good advice and an enticing range has made the shop a favorite destination for cheese-lovers.

To create a balance and harmony with our wines, we will be working with Michael and Yvette to bring you those ’something different’ cheeses to perfectly pair with your 2007 Cabernet Sauvignon or the about-to-be-released 2009 Chenin Blanc.

John Simmonds