VINCE: Hey guys Vince here.
KRISTEN: And I'm Kristen
VINCE: and we're at the Beverly Hills store because we're going to do some cheese tasting...
KRISTEN: and drink some wine.
VINCE: let's do it!
VINCE: Nobert thanks for having us out today
N: My pleasure.
VINCE: This is awesome.
KRISTEN: So nice to meet you.
VINCE: Tell me how, how you got into this shop because you're kind of an institution here in Beverly Hills.
N:That's only because I'm old. An unsuccessful music career I had to get into something to make a living and I got a job here for a dollar a day an hour and the rest is history. I was able to buy it in 1978.
VINCE: How many different types of cheeses do you have here?
N: close to 600. VINCE:600? We'll start out with this.
VINCE: All right let's do it. Look at the outside of that.
Look at the colors. N: This is gruyere style. This is a gruyere, but this is a
little more delicate. Made at the base of the Alps they've taken the local flowers, dried them and pressed them into the cheese.
VINCE: and what does that do, does it kind of permeate into the cheese?
KRISTEN: Absolutely. Very nice long long finish.
VINCE: Oh yeah. What is the vibe here being in heart of Beverly Hills?
N: Consider this a little bit of an oasis in Beverly Hills only because it's much more casual. So, this is brie de Meaux. This is brie from the town where brie was first made town of Meaux which is right next to Curly and Shemp. Because the lady called!!And there is no better. You get a little bit of that that mushroom like character and make sure you eat the rind. Most rinds you can eat. For example, parmesan, you want to use the rind on a parmesan. The rind has so much flavor. It's great stock it's wonderful soup and grate it up; it’s just as good as the inside. Let's do a good goat. So, if this is a clochette. This is from the Loire Valley which just means simply bell. And this we should eat just as it is. When you get a goat this fresh it's not overly salted, you get the real flavor of the goat's milk. In contrast to that a fresh goat from Spain is also a real treat. Much softer, less acidity.
VINCE: Oh, my goodness.
N: Marinating goat cheese are a very popular pastime. This is from Bavaria, it's called ash blue and it’s called ash and blue because of the ash on the outside.
KRISTEN: I'm not a blue cheese person. I don't want to scare you, but this is...
VINCE: it’s a very approachable blue.
N: The animals are eating well, animals eat well make good milk, good cheese. Why don't we do an aged Gouda? 5 years? What we're tasting here for something bold is a five-year-old farmhouse Gouda. What we're noticing is first the color and then the little white specks; the moisture is leaving salt stays and it's causing the casings to come together very tightly and that's that little crunch that you're getting. Nowall Gouda is from Holland. VINCE: The crunch on it is great, isn't it? Thank you so much this was fantastic. I've learned so much. KRISTEN: So, we're still here in Beverly Hills now going to do a wine pairing with our cheese pairing.
VINCE: So, the first one we started with was the goat cheese and this falls in the category of cheese called fresh cheeses. So, if you think goat, ricotta, mozzarella, any of those kind of soft fresh unaged cheeses really need a fresh lively wine to go with it. This is a Sancerre by Reverdy. So Sancerre; Sauvignon Blanc from the Loire Valley. There's a saying in the wine space that says if it grows together it goes together. So, this is a Loire Valley cheese and this is a Loire Valley wine. This cheese is a very high acid cheese and the rule with pairing in general is that you want to keep acid levels balanced so you need to have a wine that's got screaming high acid like this Sancerre does. Get a little sniffy sniff.
KRISTEN: Let it air out.
VINCE: Kind of smells like dirty rocks. Creek rocks that have kind of been in the mud a little bit. Oh yeah. What do you think?
KRISTEN: You just did the noise. VINCE: Oh, the *slurping noise*That’s just instinct now. *laughs* Take a bite. Take a sip of a wine.
KRISTEN: I already drank most of mine. You did good. Not bad, we're one for one. So next let's go ahead and go to the brie, which is one of my favorites.
VINCE: You get la lot of like creamy butter notes and so we're going with a luxe pairing we're going to go with the semi buttery wine to just kind of bring those out. So, this is AJ Wilkes Chardonnay from Santa Maria Valley. So, it's Santa Barbara Chardonnay. Fabulous winemaker. He does perfect old-world style chardonnays where it has a little restraint; so, it's a little bit of butter a little bit of oak but it’s not liked a butter bomb. And like I said just to bring out some of those buttery characteristics of this brie it's going to be perfect.
KRISTEN: Gosh this brie is so good.
VINCE: Wait till you try it with the wine. Put that in your mouth with the brie at the same time. They like one up each other.
KRISTEN: It's like a flavor burst.
VINCE: So, this guy is one of the producers that we feature on V is for Vino which is awesome. This one's going to be fun.
KRISTEN: I'm excited.
VINCE: Are you?
KRISTEN: Well I'm not a blue fan as I said before but this blue has made me a believer that blues can be good too and not just smelly feet cheese.
VINCE: All right so this our blue. And the key with funky cheese's is to pair it with a sweet wine. So, this sweet wine in particular: it's not exactly Sauternes, but it might as well be its right next door. Sauternes is a sweet wine from Bordeaux but the cool thing about this is it develops a fungus called botrytis. So just like you have mold and fungus in the cheese this wine develops a fungus called botrytis that takes out the liquid from the grapes without affecting the sugar so you have a lot of sugar and very little water and that's how you get this sweet wine. Start with the wine. So, you can see that color is more amber. To me like the caramel...almost like a caramelized orange peel. Some wines act is like a palate cleanser and some wines act as a complement and this is like a complement. So, like these you want to do at the same time.
KRISTEN: I feel like I could be at a fancy restaurant and when dessert comes out I could literally just have these two things as my dessert. So next we have Alpen lumen.
VINCE: So, I picked a Beaujolais for this one. So, Beaujolais is a place in France right between Burgundy and Rhone and they make a grape called Gamay.So burgundy makes Pinot Noir, Rhone makes Syrah. Right in between you got sandwiched is Beaujolais and they make Gamay grapes and you get the cool funkiness of Burgundy with the peppery spice notes of Syrah.
KRISTEN: I'm like smelling a little pepperiness. It reminds me of the Pinot and Syrah had a baby.
VINCE: Yes, that's a great descriptor. Ugh, I love Beaujolais.
KRISTEN: I like when you say it. Both: Beaujolais!
KRISTEN: Let's go ahead and do our aged Gouda. It was like so bold and strong and you know it's great.
VINCE: So, bingo bold and strong right? And in the land of wine you got to go bold and strong because anything... like this, it would overpower. You know it would be too much. You want to have a wine that's going to stand up to those kinds of big, caramelly flavors. So this is a Cotes du Rhone. Remember we were just talking about Rhone. We said it goes Burgundy then it goes Beaujolais and now you're Rhone. And so, this is a big... it’s very hot in Rhone so the heat means that the grapes get nice and ripe, you get big bold wines, tannic wines. KRISTEN: See it already just smells to me like heaven. And it's not really earthy, you know it’s kind of florally
VINCE: Like ripe red fruits.
KRISTEN: Mm. The crystals. I think my favorite absolute favorite was the Chardonnay here with the Brie.
VINCE: Yeah II would agree that might be me favorite. I love this cheese and I think that with the Beaujolais is also really fantastic. There are not too many wrong pairings you're going to get if you follow general guidelines you're going to be fine. So just to recap we got the fresh young cheeses with kind of a fresh lively wine like a Sauvignon Blanc. High acid wine. The bloomy cheese with a bigger fuller white's like a Viognier or Chardonnay. We got the blue...
KRISTEN: with a sweeter wine like the desert wine which is an amazing pairing.
VINCE: Yeah and then we got this the semi-hard kind of cheeses with a lighter red something that doesn’t have tannin. And then we got the big bold aged cheese...
KRISTEN: with a big bold red.
VINCE: Perfect. Well this was awesome thank you so much. KRISTEN: Great, cheers guys!
VINCE: Cheers guys, I'm Vince with V is for Vino
KRISTEN: and I'm Kristen with "Out with Kristin". Both: See you next time! Get the wine, full episodes, and more atvisforvino.com