in New York City,

and today I'm going to teach you

how to pair wine and cheese.

(upbeat music)

Everyone knows wine and cheese goes together

but there are a few rules that I think you can follow

that will make your wine and cheese experience even better.

Most cheese boards, you're going to have a goat cheese,

a cheddar cheese, a washed rind cheese, a blue cheese,

and a firm cheese.

This is kind of the 101 of cheeseboard creation

and with each of these cheeses

I think there's a wine that's a good companion.

Just like food pairing as a whole,

or just say other food pairings,

there's really no one wine that goes with everything.

So, you really need to look at each cheese individually

to see the best wine to put next to that particular cheese.

The first cheese we're going to talk about

is a goat's milk chevre cheese

and with this cheese,

I think sauvignon blanc is really the best pairing.

Sauvignon blanc that you find in areas like Loire Valley,

where much goat cheese is made

or even stuff in California.

In the end it's that style of wine

that's made from sauvignon blanc

that really makes it a good companion for chevre cheese.

It's about the acidity for me.

Really having that acid to help cut through

the fattiness and the creaminess of the goat cheese

as well as the complimentary flavors.

There's a grassy aromatic and flavor

that you get with sauvignon blanc

that I also find in goat cheese as well.

Sauvignon blanc and goat's milk chevre.

Really classic pairing.

Really delicious pairing.

The next cheese that we're going to look at

is a cheddar cheese.

This is a Vermont cheddar cheese.

For me, I really like cheddar cheese and beer

and I think that there's a really interesting companionship

that happens when you do beer and cheddar cheese

and it's a pretty common thing to do as well.

But if you want to look at wine to work with cheddar cheese

I like sparkling wine.

For me, something like champagne is perfect.

You can also do pét-nats,

which are naturally made sparkling wines.

Even cider works really well with cheddar cheese.

So, again, the idea of cheddar cheese.

The fact that is has a rich, creamy texture,

but it's pretty powerful

and I think the fattiness can benefit from bubbles.

Bubbles and cheddar, for me, that's really a great pairing

and a pairing that helps to compliment

both the cheese and the wine.

So the next cheese we're going to look at is a firm cheese.

This particular cheese is Comté,

which is a cheese that comes from the Jura in France,

right on the border of Switzerland.

Like most firm cheeses,

it can have a really nutty flavor profile

so I like really nutty wines with it.

This is an example of a wine that comes from the Jura

the same place that this Comté is from

and it's a more oxidized style of white wine,

similar to like a Sherry or a skin fermented white wine.

It has a nutty, rich texture,

white wines that have more of a red wine weight to them

which is really what you need ideally

for a pairing with firm cheese.

Also, wines from Sherry,

like a dry Sherry from Jerez in Spain,

also a great companion.

And I think additionally, skin fermented white wines

that you can find in northern Italy

would also be great pairings for firm cheeses.

So, for our soft, washed rind cheese

we have a wine from the Burgundy region in France

called Époisses.

For soft cheeses, I think you can either use

fuller bodied white wines

or I like a lighter bodied red wine.

So, Pinot Noir is a really awesome pairing with this.

It's grown in the Burgundy region of France

so again you see an example of a wine

that is from the same area as the cheese comes from

but with soft cheeses

because the flavors are very subtle,

I think you need a subtle wine like Pinot Noir.

It's not going to be too overpowering

and help enhance the flavors of that cheese.

The last cheese that we have is a blue cheese

and for me, the classing pairing for blue cheese is port.

This is a great example of a tawny port.

So, ports are rich, full bodied red wines,

but wines that often have a bit of sweetness.

Because blue cheese be a little funky, kind of salty,

that sweetness and that full body really helps

to offset those flavors, enhance them

and really make an awesome pairing.

It's a classic pairing, and classic for a reason.

So I think we've seen today that wine and cheese

can work really well together.

And there's a lot of options

to make your wine and cheese pairing perfect.

So in the end, you should open a lot of wine

and eat a lot of cheese.

I'm Patrick Cappiello from Playboy.com

This is Mardon, a little grower that's making some of the most spectacular wines in the area.

A family-run domain that produces really mineral-driven and focus-style sauvignon blanc.