The Pairing: Magaya de Sidra

by Sophia Stern

As a crew with diverse tastes and preferences, it’s not always that a wheel in the cheese case is loved by all. However, the most recent wheel to win our collective hearts is Magaya de Sidra which has been dubbed ‘The Best Cheese Added to our Case in 2021’. This week, we’re pairing this addictive cow’s milk cheese with a cider from the same region of Asturias, Spain. As Magaya features a rind covered in the pulp leftover from the cider making process, it was a given that we pair this cheese with nothing other than an Austrian cider. As our first step away from featuring wine for the pairing, we couldn’t have asked for a better bottle. Slightly sparkling, Mayador Sidra Espumante is light and flavorful. Both the cider and cheese are steeply entrenched in the rich traditions of Asturias, a natural wonder tucked on Spain’s northern coast. 

Asturias is part of Green Spain, a natural area running along the country’s north coast. The Asturias region features mountains, ancient forests, and stunning coastline full of sandy beaches with natural caves scattered from the peaks to the sea. Costal winds keep the climate mild, while steady rainfall supports a lush and diverse landscape of grasses, herbs, and wildflowers as well as with the expansive apple orchards essential to the sidra culture of the area. The Asturian landscape is primed for making beautiful cheeses and Magaya is one of the best.

Made by Rey Silo, Magaya’s distinct aging process sets the cheese apart from others in the region and bridges the Asturian tradition of natural cider and cheese. After three months of aging in a natural cave, the raw cows milk cheese is sealed in cider barrels with just the spent apple pulp at the bottom. Allowing the wheel to sit in the pulp for two months rehydrates the cheese with apple juices, causing an unexpected creaminess and tartness. The cows diet of grasses and wildflowers give the rich paste green notes, which are balanced by the tart apple flavor from the aging process. 

To handle the richness of tart Magaya, we’ve paired this cheese with medium-dry Mayador, a sweeter, lighter sidra just effervescent enough to cut through the intensity of Magaya without overpowering the subtle notes of flowers and grass. Made by one of the oldest producers of sidras in the Asturias, Mayador is made traditionally, except that this limited release has an unusually lengthy aging process. The apples ferment in chesnut barrels for 8 months, creating a well balanced expression of a traditional sidra. Both Magaya and Mayador are stunning expressions of the land they come from. We hope you’ll enjoy them together and that they'll spark an interest in Spanish cheese beyond Manchego and in the world of natural ciders from one of the most unique places on earth.

The Pairing: Ogleshield

On a hill in Cadbury where the castle of King Arthur perhaps once sat, the Montgomery family has been making cheese for three generations. Although famed for their farmhouse cheddar, the dairy makes an unexpected style of cheese from an unexpected heard of cows, at least for an English dairy. Montgomery’s Ogleshield is a raclette-style cheese. It’s made with Jersey cow’s milk and like many British cheeses, Ogleshield is grassy and earthy, but its washed rind gives the cheese a distinct boldness, reminiscent of beef stock. Ogleshield stars in this week’s pairing along with Mairposa, a delicious Chilean red made of 100% país grapes.  

Ogleshield is sold to us by Neal’s Yard Dairy, the gold standard for British and Irish cheeses. Neal’s Yard has championed the success of British and Irish cheese since the late 1970’s. From selection  to aging and selling, Neal’s Yard balances tradition and innovation, working with stunning dairy farms around the Isles to create unique, flavorful, iconic cheeses which get shipped around the world. Of the many incredible farms supplying wheels to Neal’s Yard, Montgomery’s is a standout both for their cheddar and Ogleshield. 

A product of risk and experimentation, it took trial and error before Ogleshield became the cheese we know it as today. Jamie Montgomery usually uses his Friesian (Holstein) herd for cheesemaking, meaning Ogleshield is the first cheese made from Montgomery’s Jersey heard and the only cheese sold at Neal’s Yard to be made of 100% Jersey milk. Jersey milk is sweet and creamy and known to make great melting cheeses. When the experimentation began, the new Jersey cheese had a natural rind. A Neal’s Yard cheesemaker, who studied cheese traditions in the Alps, suggested that a salt water wash might improve the cheese’s maturation. Ogleshield was born. With the washed rind and meltable Jersey milk, the Montgomery farm found themselves with a West Country version of raclette. 

We’ve paired this beefy, grassy, raclette-style with a frankly delicious red wine from Chile. Mariposa is made of 100% país grapes, introduced to Chile by Spanish colonialist priests sent to set up missionaries in the New World. Some país vines are around 100 years old, but Mairposa comes from 40 year old vines and is made by a husband and wife dedicated to sustainable, minimalist winemaking. This red is fruity and smooth, with a little bit of red berry tartness on the finish. In many cases, the fruitiness of a wine draws out similar notes in the cheese. In this pairing, the opposite happens as Oglesheild’s grass notes amplify the background notes of minerality and earth in the otherwise fruit-forward red. Enjoy Ogleshield melted for a raclette dinner or simply snack on a wedge at room temperature. Either way, make sure you grab a bottle of Mariposa and enjoy the two together.

The Pairing: Bandaged Bismark

by Sophia Stern

Open the fridge in a typical American household and you’ll probably find cheddar in the cheese drawer. Most of us know cheddar as a rindless rectangle wrapped in plastic. However, cheddar’s original form is pretty unfamiliar to American cheese culture. Traditional English cheddar is made in huge cylinders and gets snugly wrapped in a cloth bandage. For this week’s pairing, we’ve chosen a domestic cheddar inspired by this tradition, but with several other distinct features. Not only is Bandaged Bismark clothbound and cave-aged, it is also made with raw sheep’s milk and aged beneath the streets of Brooklyn in New York City. 

In what was once a 19th century brewing cave, Benton Brown & Susan Boyle now run Crown Finish Caves. Crown Finish is a cheese aging facility operating 30 feet below Bergen Street in Brooklyn. The cave is loaded with wooden shelves, stacked to the brim with around 28,000 pounds of aging cheeses. Except for a few Italian cheeses made from water buffalo’s milk, most of the cheese at Crown Finish is made on farms in Vermont or Upstate New York. Experienced dairy farmers with land and facilities make fresh wheels of cheese, known as green cheese, and send the wheels down to Brooklyn where Brown, Boyle, and their small team attend to the laborious process of aging their collection of different cheeses. 

Bandaged Bismark is a reflection of the Northeast’s rich dairy traditions. This cheddar starts with sheep’s milk from an Amish dairy farm in Upstate New York, which is then sent to the cheesemakers at Grafton Village Cheese in Vermont. At Grafton, the accomplished cheddar makers turn the New York sheep’s milk into cheese. Once ready for aging, the young wheels are sent down to Crown Finish, where they descend below the streets to be clothbound and aged on wooden shelves for four to six months. The bandage introduces a complex flavor to the cheddar, capturing the microbiology of the cave and imparting flavors of earth and minerality. The sheep’s milk itself is buttery and floral, with distinct herbaceous notes and a slight tartness on the finish. 

Sheep’s milk can be tricky to pair, but the cheddar of it all offered a clue. Since chardonnay and cheddar are a classic pairing, we chose Beaune 'Clos du Foulot' Monopole from the Baptiste Guyot winery. This young wine, entirely made from chardonnay grapes, has a distinct green apple acidity, along with surprisingly strong notes of butter and oak for a 2020 vintage. As the cheese is more buttery than tart, the acid in the wine brightens the cheddar and draws out the cave-aged minerality from the rind. Although cheddar and chardonnay are both familiar faces, this pairing highlights the unique features in both the wine and cheese without compromising on their classic comfort. 

The Pairing: Appenzeller

by Sophia Stern

January teased us with a forty degree day, but the below-double digit weeks are still long ahead of us. As a celebration of dark, cold winter nights, we’ve paired a staple cold-weather cheese with a dry Riesling from an unexpected location. This week, from the Swiss Alps, we have Appenzeller paired with a delicious Riesling from the Finger Lakes region in upstate New York. Appenzeller is as nutty and buttery as it is funky and bold. The Black Label Appenzeller featured in this week’s pairing is made of raw cow’s milk and has the distinct melt-in-your mouth feature of a classic Alpine cheese. At six months, this Appenzeller is flecked with small tyrosine crystals, offering a slight crunch throughout the cheese. 

Tradition and hard work are key to any cheesemaking process, but making cheese in the mountains takes cheesemaking to another level. Extreme cattle herding is integral to Alpine cheese. Herdsmen move the cows up the mountain, allowing them to graze pasture to pasture until they reach the peak in the summer and begin migrating the herd back down before the winter snow. Allowing the cows to feed on different pastures across a variety of altitudes gives their milk the dynamic, unique flavor that goes beyond the usual buttery, nuttiness of cow’s milk. The cow’s high variety diet, made of a multitude of grasses, herbs, flowers, and more, along with their high activity lifestyle, leads to healthy, happy cows with nutrient-dense, flavorful milk. 

As if the traditions of mountain dairy farming weren’t enough to produce a beautiful cheese, Appenzeller is treated to a laborious and highly secretive aging process. Once the curds have been stirred, drained and pressed into their eventual cheese shape, the fresh wheels are soaked in a salt bath. This bath imparts flavor and removes extra moisture content. Once dried and aging on their wooden shelves, each wheel of Appenzeller Black Label is tended to for six months. During the six month period, the wheels are treated with a secret smear made up of 25 vague herbs, an alcoholic secret spirit, and other undisclosed ingredients. There are only two people who know the full recipe of the smear, but the flavor imparted on Appenzeller is much of what makes the cheese so loved.

To my absolute delight, we’ve paired this flavorful cheese with a delicious Riesling from the Finger Lakes. Although I personally love a sweet Riesling too, Ravines Wine Cellars’ Dry Riesling is, as you would expect, dry, but also tart with juicy, fruity notes and a minerality that keeps the wine in balance. Enjoying these two together to be transported to a warm and beautiful Alpine resort or, at the very least, to make your evening a little cozier. 

To read more about Ravine Riesling, check out the liquor store’s blog post here.

The Pairing: Chabichou

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. 

The Pairing: Comte Sagesse

Throughout the course of our weekly pairing series, we’ve studied many different styles of cheese. From pillowy-soft bloomy rind cheeses, to meaty, funky washed rinds, to crystalline, crunchy, cave-aged goudas, and for heaven’s sake, don’t forget the blues; we’ve covered many delicious options. But it’s not always simply the style or type of cheese that makes one unique or sets them apart. In fact, many cheesemakers would argue that successfully aging cheese is more challenging than the actual make of the cheese itself. A talented affineur can take a cheese to a whole new level. For the second week in a row, we revisit a cheese we paired earlier in our pairing series, returning to the caves of Marcel Petite at Fort Saint Antoine, high in the Jura mountains of eastern France, to showcase an extra-special, aged Comté named “Sagesse.” Each year, just before the Holidays, we receive a small shipment of this amazing cheese chosen specifically for its ability to age, like a fine wine. These wheels of Comté are hand-selected by Marcel Petite’s Master Affineur, Claude Querry, for their ability to peak in taste, texture, and aroma at right around 2 years old. Aged at least one year longer than the wheels of Marcel Petite Comté you’ll normally find in our case, the Sagesse is dynamic, and screaming for something yummy to drink along side it. Where its younger sibling tastes of fresh cream and butter, combined with the slightest hint of raw almond and green grass, the older Sagesse delivers a boozy punch of toasted brioche and burnt sugars, kissed with a proper hint of farm. We’ve chosen the 2016 Pinot Noir from Robert Sinskey Vineyards in Napa Valley, California for our wine pairing. Light enough to stand on its own, but with a spine strong enough to hang with a 2 year old cheese, this Pinot is a fantastic partner. Flavors of bright red fruit and cinnamon mingle with aromas of native prairie flowers and oak to successfully make this wine our first choice. The combination of meticulous attention to detail and perfect weather has blessed this vintage with an unfair advantage that fully supports a cheese like the Sagesse, and we’re excited. Supplies are limited, so swing by early and get it while you can!

The Pairing: Brabander Reserve

This is a crazy time of year to be working in our shops. Business has slowed a bit since the school year began, and we’re finally able to catch our breathes after a busy summer season, but the Holidays are just around the corner, and deliveries to our back door are becoming more frequent and more massive. There is no better time of year to do the work that we do; it’s the time when our customers will depend on us the most, and it feels good to be in a position to deliver. It’s also the time of year that certain exclusive, seasonal cheeses become available to us, and our cheesemongers can’t wait to share them with you. The L’Amuse Brabander Reserve, the elder sibling of Brabander, a goat milk gouda from southern Holland we paired earlier in this series, is one of these special cheeses. And it has just arrived! While Brabander is young, milky and tastes of sweet cream, the Reserve is aged a full year longer, and is reminiscent of caramelized custard and cocoa. Over this extra period of aging, the cheese’s paste becomes a bit more crunchy, yet still melts easily on the tongue, and flavors develop in waves. For this week’s wine selection, we’ve chosen a highly celebrated Reserve Rioja from Remelluri Winery in the Basque region of northern Spain, a little over an hour drive from Bilbao, and the Bay of Biscay. Known as the first single estate Rioja vineyard in Spain, Remelluri has gained a reputation for producing fantastic Riojas that showcase distinct terroir and improve with age. With stern tannins and notes of deep red fruit, leather, and a hint of smoke, this wine is bold and beautiful and not only complements the cheese’s character, but unearths new layers of flavor within. Swing by the shop this weekend, and make time for a special occasion.

The Pairing: Rush Creek Reserve

by Sophia Stern

The air is cold, the days are shorter, the trees are full of beautifully colored leaves, and Rush Creek Reserve has arrived at the France 44 cheese counter. Beloved and sure to sell out, Rush Creek is the holiday cheese that should be on all of our lists. We’ve paired our most anticipated cheese of the year with a beautiful Franciacorta from Lombardy, a perfect bubbly for the holiday season. 

There is no better cheese than Rush Creek to launch the first of our Holiday Pairings for 2021. A special project by the makers of Pleasant Ridge Reserve, Uplands Cheese’s Rush Creek is only available from late October until the end of the year. The annual creation of Rush Creek marks the beginning of fall, as the cheese is made just as the cows switch from grazing on summer pasture to cured hay, resulting in richer, fattier milk. Inspired by the traditions of Vacherin Mont D'Or, Rush Creek is a creamy, decadent cheese wrapped in spruce bark. The bark imparts a gentle woody flavor into the cheese, cutting through the other notes of butter, hay, and cream. Rush Creek Reserve is a thing of beauty and unlike most other cheeses you’ll find in our case.

Uplands Cheese recommend you enjoy Rush Creek with sparkling wine, and who are we to argue. This year, we’ve chosen Ca del Bosco Franciacorta 'Cuvee Prestige' for its gentle, clean sparkle and notes of strawberry and grass. Ca’ del Bosco sits at the foothills of the Alps in northern Italy and is considered the gold standard. Made with the traditional Champagne method, this wine has fine and creamy bubbles as opposed to the big and frothy bubbles one might find in a Prosecco. While mostly Chardonnay, the Cuvee Prestige is balanced with Pinot Bianco and Pinot Nero and also boasts deeper, richer flavor and texture than other Franciacortas due to its 25 month long contact with the lees. Considered the “Champagne of Italy”, this stunning, highly respected Franciacorta is a dynamic crowd pleasing bubbly. It emphasises the sweet grass notes of Rush Creek and break through the richness without overpowering the nuances of this special cheese. 

We always say it, but this time we are serious: allow Rush Creek to come to room temperature before enjoying. Let it sit on your counter for six hours and slice the top off before eating with a spoon. At just under a pound, Rush Creek should be enjoyed in one sitting and with company. Pick up the first of the Holiday Pairings and invite over a few friends, or make Rush Creek the center of your party table while you serve the best of the best Franciacorta. We’ll be running this pairing until the end of the year, so from fall nights at home to the Thanksgiving table, we have you covered. 

To read more about Rush Creek Reserve, check out our blog post here. 

The Pairing: Manchego

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.

The Pairing: Blakesville Lake Effect

As you can imagine, opening a farmstead dairy and creamery is hard. From establishing abundant pastures, and a herd of healthy animals capable of providing high quality milk, to design and construction of an efficient facility for production and proper aging, to hiring good workers who can learn to produce, market, and ship your product; each of these tasks pose massive challenges, are wholly reliant upon one another, and the formula is complicated. For this week’s pairing, we’re highlighting a creamery that has not only recently opened, but did so during the pandemic. Nestled on 400 acres of farmland, and perched above the western shores of Lake Michigan, in the town of Port Washington, WI, Blakesville Creamery is beating all the odds. It was 2012 when the owner purchased the farm and began the process of transitioning the farm from a traditional cow dairy to one that cared for goats. The farm’s primary goal was to produce quality goat milk using sustainable farming practices, while concurrently, building a business that listened to the environmental and social needs of its surrounding community. Following 7+ years spent establishing the goat dairy, the creamery was slated to begin production in April of 2020. Due to the emergence of the pandemic, plans got delayed, and delayed some more. And markets evaporated overnight. But the vision on the farm was still clear, and the team at Blakesville Creamery forged ahead with their big dreams. Under the guidance of head cheesemaker, Veronica Pedraza, they begin listening, learning, and adapting to what was happening around them, and the creamery began making cheese. We’ve been lucky enough to stock Blakesville’s cheeses in our cases from the very beginning, and we’ve been delighted with them. The cheese we celebrate this week is Blakesville Creamery’s Lake Effect. A soft ripened goats milk cheese, Lake Effect delivers the perfect combination of earthy aroma and sweet and salty paste, along with ideal ratios of cream line and bloomy rind chew. Our chosen wine pairing for this cheese is, Le Havre de Paix, from the Côtes de Gascogne wine district of southwestern France, just north of the Pyrenees mountains. With vibrant notes of green apple and honeycomb, along with a faint minerality, this white blend is a wonderful partner for the Lake Effect, as the wine’s buttery structure holds its own against the cheese’s rich and creamy finish.