By Sophia Stern
This weeks pairing highlights a staple of our cheese case, Pasamontes 3-month Manchego. Sheep's milk tends to pair well with a bold red or standout white, but this manchego is subtler than other sheep milk cheeses. At only three months, the texture is just starting to firm up. Bolder wines wash away the melt-in-your-mouth cheese before the tartness and notes of herbs and grass come through. And yet, the Manchego needs a wine strong enough to elevate the rich, buttery milk which comes from the Manchega sheep native to Castilla La Mancha.
Enter Itxas Harri Roxa Rosé from the village of Monteagudo in the northern Basque region of Navarra. Itxas Harri wines belong to Ignacio Ameztoi and Iñaki Guelbenzu who are longtime friends and winemaking partners. Navarra is known as the garden of Spain, famous for its high quality artichokes and other produce. Roxa, a new wine project for Itxas Harri, has the refreshing, lower alcohol qualities usually associated with costal wines. It drinks saline and mineral. Although the vineyard is not on the coast, the Garnacha vines are planted on an ancient seabed, leading to the oceanic qualities in the fruit. The Garnacha grape is popular throughout Spain, as it tends to thrive in dry, hot climates. However, this wine only has two hours of skin contact with the Garnacha grapes, making it pale and gentle.
There are long standing rules for wine pairings, white with seafood, red with steak, what grows together goes together and so on. Recent pairing trends have pushed against these rules, rebelling against the ways they blur the nuances of agriculture and the individuality of their products. However, sometimes we circle back to these rules and find that what grows near each other sometimes does go together, and these Spanish products play together wonderfully. Roxa draws out the savory, green flavors of the Pasamontes Manchego. The wine allows the easy-going cheese to show its complexity while brightening up the rich and buttery notes we go back for over and over again.
To see more about the Pasamontes Manchego, check out our blog post here.