After a hiatus over our busy holiday season, the pairing is back with a staff favorite- Chabichou du Patiou. This dense, creamy, bright little goat cheese comes from France’s western countryside. In the Loire Valley, among the rolling hills, thick grasses, and along the Vendée riverways, little goats roam their pastures and farmers produce some of the best goat cheese in the world. The Loire Valley, with its long history of farming and fertile, mineral rich land, holds a reputation as the gold standard for fresh goat cheeses and Chabichou shines bright among them.
Nomadic people, usually from the Arabian Peninsula, introduced cheeses like Chabichou to France by migrating with their goats across Europe. Chabichou du Patiou comes from an Arab tradition of cheese making, introduced to the French countryside by the Saracen soldiers who set up camp during the Umayyad conquest of western Europe. The soldiers brought livestock with them to sustain them, but as the French expelled the Saracen from their camps, the goats and cheese recipes got left behind. The goats brought by the Saracen people thrived on the herbaceous, dynamic land of northwestern France and so begun the tradition of goat cheese in the Loire Valley.
The anatomy of Chabichou is part of what makes the cheese so special and the flavors shine. The small, cylindrical goat cheese features a beautiful, bloomy rind. The ridges of the rind look like a topographical map of a mountain range and tastes amazingly piquant. Right under the rind is a dreamy line of cream. The cream line provides a rich, buttery quality to the cheese. At the center of Chabichou, the paste is fudgier and dense, and also provides the brightest and tangiest flavor. Chabichou is a cheese that completely coats your mouth with it’s rich texture and bold flavor. Tangy, gaminess is a given of good quality goat milk, but the goats used to make Chabichou eat a diverse diet of local grasses, grains, spouts and other plants which leads to the cheese’s complex flavor of citrus and herbs. These notes are balanced by a minerality in the milk, gained from the mineral rich limestone soil of the area.
We’ve paired this beauty of a cheese with a Sauvignon Blanc from the costal, mountainous Marlborough region in New Zealand. Rain Sauvignon Blanc has tropical fruit notes and a great texture that stands up to the goat milk. The strong lychee fruit flavors are needed with this slightly mature batch of Chabichou. The wine’s texture also plays nicely with the goat’s creaminess, rather than simply washing it away. As always, enjoy your Chabichou at room temperature and don’t be surprised by the ample creamline in this older batch. It might be a little messy, but the flavor is perfect.