Cheese and Orange Wine Pairing

I had great fun trying cheeses with orange wines recently for one of the wine events that I hosted. It’s easy to say that when it comes to cheese and wine pairing, the rule of thumb is to pair dry white wines with soft cheeses with mild or strong flavours. For reds, stick with hard cheese with mild flavours. Sweet wines can pair with a wilder variety of cheeses. However, how about orange wines?

Ok, I know, there are so many different styles of orange wines so it really depends. Some are really light and delicate, with just a few days of skin maceration but some are really full on, with months of skin contact. But as I’d like to gently introduce orange wines to my audience (50 females guests who do not know much about wine) so I thought I should opt for something that doesn’t have long maceration time – gentle and elegant. What I chose was Touch 2018 from Koppitsch Wine – a family run winery in Austria. https://weingut-koppitsch.at/touch/ which is available in the UK through Jasctos Wine Merchants https://www.jascots.co.uk/p3024/touch-natural-wine-koppitsch-burgenland-austria/

I tried the wine with different styles of cheese – soft cheese, washed-rind, hard cheeses with different lengths of maturation. The result: washed-rind cheese made it to the top!

Riseley Cheese (Washed rind with Sheep’s milk) – this works so perfectly. https://www.nealsyarddairy.co.uk/products/riseley

Wigmore Cheese (Bloomy rind with Ewe’s milk) – this also works amazingly. https://www.paxtonandwhitfield.co.uk/shop/buy-cheese/by-region/english-cheese/wigmore-200g

Interestingly, both cheeses are made by Anne Wigmore https://www.villagemaidcheese.co.uk

The wine however, doesn’t really work well with Camembert or matured Manchego. I will continue to work out what pairs well with other styles of orange wines with more tannins.

Watch the space.