For the second week in a row, we’re focusing our attention on one of the world’s most famous blue cheeses. This week’s pairing selection takes us to a small region in southern France called Roquefort-sur-Soulzon, where we find Maison Carles, one of the world’s smallest producers of Roquefort who export their cheese to the U.S. For nearly 100 years, this 3rd generation cheesemaking family has been producing Roquefort by hand, relying on an old-world recipe and time-tested techniques to achieve brilliance. It was in 1924 that Roquefort became the first French cheese to receive its AOC status, a label indicating that the cheese had been produced in a specific geographical region according to strict production regulations. And now, under the leadership of Delphine Carles, and amongst only 7 producers of Roquefort in the world, Maison Carles stands out to us as one of the best we’ve tasted. Made with milk from their own herd of pastured Lacaunes sheep, and inoculated with house-grown mold harvested from locally made rye bread, Carles Roquefort is deeply complex, subtly sweet, and ripe with bluish green veins of molding. Aging of these wheels occurs underground in cavernous limestone fissures, known as fleurines, which provide the perfect form of natural ventilation needed to ripen the cheese. For a wine pairing, we’ve selected Domaine La Tour Vieille’s Banyuls Rimage 2016. Made from fully ripened Grenache grapes, and employing a process known as mutage, which arrests fermentation within the grape must, producing a sweeter tasting wine, this rich and silky Banyuls dessert wine from French Catalonia provides a perfect balance to this luscious salty cheese.