STILTON and Port -- they go together like, well, like Roquefort and Sauternes. They're the Astaire and Rogers of food and wine pairings. They're both fabulous on their own, but put them together, and they swing.
It's not often, though, that most people happen to have a vintage Port handy when the cheese platter comes around. More likely, you'll have a bit of red wine left in your glass. Chances are the red wine will be great with that Petit Basque or that Camembert. But take a sip of red wine after tasting a blue cheese, and yeek! The wine goes metallic and weird in the mouth.
Salty, rich, tangy and assertive, blue cheeses demand something different. Something sweet to balance the salt. Something intense to stand up to the power of the cheese.
But blues don't want just any old sweet wine. What works is a wine with backbone, with depth or with lively acid -- in any case a wine with some complexity.
The wine can't be too delicate, or the cheese will overwhelm it. Floral doesn't work; it can't be too pretty or the blue cheese will just laugh at it. So forget apricot-scented Muscat de Beaumes-de-Venise; don't even think about a Gewurtztraminer.
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Delightful surprises
DOES that mean only a vintage Port or Sauternes will do? On the contrary. A couple of weeks tasting American blue cheeses with stickies -- sweet dessert wines -- from around the world turned up some fabulous unexpected matches. Sweet red dessert wines from Banyuls, France, tawny Ports, sweet white Cotes de Bergeracs and intriguing Tokajis from Hungary all positively dance on the palate with a good farmstead blue. And it's a good thing too because a great Sauternes or a vintage Port that's ready to drink can easily break the bank, whereas many of these wines are relative bargains.
Tawny Port is one of the great underrated wines of the world. To understand what it is, first consider what it's not: vintage Port -- Portugal's most famous fortified wine. Vintage Port is only "declared" (bottled) in the best vintages. It's aged in wood for two or three years, then aged in the bottle for a decade or three. It's deep ruby in color, with wonderful deep fruit flavors. Right now you can buy Port from the 2003 vintage, but it's nowhere near ready to drink.
Tawny Port, on the other hand, is aged in wood for 10, 20, 30 or 40 years. By the time it's 30 or 40 years old, it takes on rich caramel, vanilla and nut flavors, and a tawny brown color.
