Mark's March
Cheese, Wine, and Beer Pairings:

Estero Gold Cheese and
Chilean Carménère Wine

Maple Leaf Cheese’s
English Hollow Cheddar and Boddingtons Pub Ale

Columns to Savor
Mark Todd

Romantic Pairings f or Valentine Love

Fol Epi Cheese and La Chouffe Beer and Two Rock Valley Cheese and Dashe Zinfandel Wine

Pugs Leap Pavé Cheese and Woodenhead Halfshell White Wine and Pont l’Evêque Cheese
and Hennepin Belgian Farmhouse Saison Beer

Bonifaz Porcini and Chanterelle Brie Cheese with Viognier Wine and Vella Dry Jack Cheese and New Belgium Fat Tire Ale.

Romatic Winter Cheeses: Fromager Des Clarines and Monesteriolo Cava Brut Wine; and Le Vache de Chalais Cheese and Smithwick’s Irish Ale

Italian Cheese Pairings: La Tur Italian Cheese with St. Michael-Eppan Pinot Grigio wine; and Ford Farms Wensleydale Cheese with Cranberry and Anchor Brewery Porter Beer

Holiday Cheese Pairings. Cahill's Whiskey Cheddar Cheese and Shiner Bock Beer. Marcarpone Cheese and Moscato d' Asti Wine

Tilsiter Cheese and Octoberfest Beer, and
Alsatian Munster Cheese and Alsatian Gewurztraminer Wine

Classic Pairings from France and England: California Crotin and Sauvignon Blanc from Quincy, and Montgomery's English Farmhouse Cheddar and Samuel Smith's India Ale

Picnic Cheeses: Fiscalini Cheddar with Chimay Ale, and Legendairy Blue Roomkass with J. Lohr Beaujolais Wine.

Picnic Cheeses that Celebrate Summer.

Spring Cheeses: White Stilton with Lemon Zest and German Hefe_Weisse Beer, and Blue Stilton with Australian Tokay Wine.

Irish Cheeses: Cashel Irish Blue Cheese and Late Harvest Zinfandel, and Cahill's Porter Irish Cheese and Guinness Stout.

Brie de Meanx with Gruet Sparkling NV Brut and French Morbier Cheese with Saison Farmhouse Ale.

Aged Gouda Cheese and Belgian Dubbel Beer, and Fourme d’Ambert and
Côtes du Rhone Wine.

Cheeses of the Alps: Allgäuer Bergkäse with Alsatian Pinot Blanc, and Appenzeller Cheese with Bock Beer.

Cheeses of the Alps: Chiantino Cheese and Altbier Beer, and Hirtenkäse Cheese and Gewürztraminer Wine.

Spanish Wines and Cheeses.

History of Beer, Cider, and Mead: Cheese's Other Companion Beverages with two pairings.

Read more about
Mark "The Cheese Dude" Todd.

Get more information on great Alpine and specialty cheeses at Fond O' Foods.

Cheese Expert
Mark Todd

Feasts for the Fireside

The beer and cheese combo showcases some of the best of Old World craftsmanship (paired with the latest technology), as well as New World interpretations of traditional favorites. And speaking of damp and cool, our beer and cheese combo is borrowed from the British—admittedly a group not known for their contribution to world cuisine. We are talking about people that think of “Toad in the Hole” as comfort food. And don’t get me started on “Spotted Dick.” But if England has a couple of areas of true culinary strength, then certainly foremost among them would be beer and cheese. The Boddingtons Pub Ale is the epitome of creamy, particularly when combined with the latest beer-tech delivery system. I refer to the widget, as it is commonly called, also used in Guinness Draft. (See my column featuring Guinness for more on the widget). The cheese is also a delight of creamy extremes. The English Hollow Cheddar certainly deserves its World Cheese Award. Together, these two make even the darkest, dreariest day seem full of warmth and cheer. Enjoy with a friend.

The Cheese
Though Valley Ford Cheese is a relatively new company (they started production in 2008), the Mountain View Jerseys family dairy that supplies the cheese dates back to 1918. The cheesemaker, Karen Bianchi-Moreda, is a fourth generation Sonoma County dairy owner.  Her two sons, currently pursuing on their college degrees, are primed to take over as the fifth generation before long.

Working alongside her father Paul and brother Steve, Karen currently milks about 450 Jerseys (she calls them “my beautiful girls”) in a herd that has been completely closed for almost one hundred years. That is unheard of in American dairying – the family can trace the genetics for their entire herd back ten or more generations! Some of the milkers are over ten years old and still producing well; a feat not matched by any dairy I have ever visited. They cows’ exceptional productivity allows the family to sell some of their extra milk to Bellwether Farms for their award winning (they also make sheep’s milk cheeses) cow’s milkcheeses and luscious crème fraîche. Anything leftover goes to Safeway for fluid consumption, which is, in my opinion, a criminal waste of resources—but it makes great economic sense for the Bianchis.

 The first offering from this new cheesemaker,  Estero Gold—named for the local ocean estuary, the Estero de Americano, that forms part of the boundary between Marin and Sonoma counties.  A raw milk Italian farmstead table cheese, it belongs to the same family as Montasio and Asiago of medium age. It has the small, irregular holes associated with these cheeses, but unlike its part-skimmed Alpine brethren, Estero Gold is made with whole milk. The sample I tasted was aged six months. Deep buttery-colored (due to the rich Jersey’s milk), this natural-rind cheese has aromas of popcorn with cultured butter, as well as hints of the fresh grasses the cows enjoy and a slightly sweet citrus note as well, like mandarin or kumquat rind. The flavors are also buttery, with distinct sharp/nutty nuances reminiscent of the alpine cheeses from northern Italy. It finishes sweet/tart, with a lingering taste of toasted hazelnuts and a balancing acidity that leaves your mouth watering for more.

The Cheese
Jeff Wideman, Master Cheesemaker, is a legend in the world of Wisconsin cheese, and like most legends, somewhat of a maverick. He grew up on a dairy farm not far from the cheese factory he manages today in the heart of Green County, Wisconsin. Anybody in the know about Wisconsin cheese is familiar with the name Green County, synonymous with Swiss cheeses and home to the infamous “Swiss Mafia,” a group of predominantly Swiss cheesemakers in the area.
Our maverick, however, decided to buck the local trend. Reaching into history, Jeff knew that the small area of Green County in which he was born used to go by a different name. Because of the predominance of British dairy farmers in the area at the time, it was once known as “English Hollow.” Jeff returned to these roots to produce small production, handmade cheddars.
Jeff’s latest version, borrowing the historic moniker, is certainly not your supermarket orange cheddar. It may look like the ubiquitous rubbery cheese-like substance found between the milk and the bags of shreds in your local mega-mart, but English Hollow Cheddar has as much in common with that product as sushi-grade Ahi tuna has with Charlie in the Starkist can. In its first year of production, Jeff won the Blue Ribbon at the 2008 World Cheese Championships, and followed up with a Blue Ribbon in 2009 from the American Cheese Society.
This cheese is the epitome of a creamy cheddar. Not crumbly like a true English cheddar (Montgomery, Keen’s or Isle of Mull), but drier than most cold-cured Wisconsin cheddars. The cheese is always aged at least one year at release. My particular piece was just shy of two years old, so that may have contributed to the drier texture. Yet it was also unbelievably creamy. When I sliced it with a cheese plane, I could detect no curd separation; just a solid sheet of lusciousf, velvety paste that melts under the pressure of your tongue against your palate. The aromas are intense and, to borrow a wine term, varietally correct, with a predominance of beefy/brothy flavors backed by a supporting chorus of fruitiness reminiscent of a raw milk cheese. There is just the slightest hint of smokiness to this cheese that makes me think of bacon (oh, what a shame!). It is easy to see why the flavor scientists have yet to master the unbelievably complex flavors in mature cheddar, and why it continues to be, as they say in the Monty Python cheese skit, “the single most popular cheese in the world!”