For fuss-free fall entertaining, it’s hard to rival a bountiful cheese board and some delicious wine. But since pairing the complex flavors of wine with those of cheese can be tricky, we asked several North Shore purveyors to suggest some wines they’re currently excited about and cheeses to match.
To plump up your cheese board, set out a variety of crackers, along with some fresh and dried fruit, separate bowls of nuts, olives, and chutney or jam. Some charcuterie is always welcome, as are bite-size veggies, like cherry tomatoes and mini sweet peppers. Then, all you need to do is add napkins and goblets, uncork the wines, and gather some friends to share in the bounty.
At The Cheese Shop of Salem, which carries more than 120 cheeses and 400 wines (plus crackers, dried fruit, nuts, and condiments), manager and wine director, a Slovenian skin-contact wine made from Pinot Grigio grapes. “It is a soft orange-bronze–colored wine that’s technically an orange wine (the reddish-blue color of the white grape skins steeps in the pressed juice longer than with most white wines and color the juice pinky-orange) and full of notes of peach pit, apricot, and herbs.” Ulbrich suggests serving the wine with , an alpine-style raw cow’s milk cheese from Jasper Hill Farm in Vermont. Aged for six months in hay, the cheese takes on flavors of walnuts, earth, umami, and chestnut honey, says Ulbrich, who also likes the orange wine with , a firm sheep’s milk round from the Basque area of France. “It’s just a gorgeous little wheel that’s torched at the height of ripeness to burnish the rind and give it a caramelized sweetness.”
