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Is there a more perfect pairing in the world than the classic Stilton and Ruby Port? I think not. It’s all there - the brine, the sweet, the caramel; the chocolate, the buttery, the crumbly. This is a match made in heaven, and detailed in wine menus for as long as one can remember. Or, at least, as long as Stilton has ben around. Stilton is an English bleu cheese with so much incredible character and depth that it requires the rich, round, sweet caress of Ruby port to carry it through the palette.
This old combo is so classic, it can be dressed up, or dressed down. You can take it on a picnic and it’s a delight, and you can find it on the charcuterie boards and wine menus at three-star restaurants as well. This combo works because it is a complimentary pairing. The cheese has natural salt and sweetness from the lactose and the bacteria, Pennecillum Roqueforti. The wine is sweet from its residual sugar, and saline due to its location of harvest.
Moreover, the cheese offers honeyed milk and butter flavors, and the wine brings butterscotch, caramel and popcorn flavors upon the undertones of its ubiquitous candied cassis and blackberry flavor. The wine’s acidity is then powerful enough to knock the chalky cheese right down your gullet, and prepare you for the next bite.
But what if you want something more casual? Something a bit less rich and sweet, but something with the fortitude to handle Stilton? Perhaps something a bit easier on the calories - after all, ruby port does contain about thirty percent residual sugar, by comparison, Coca-Cola contains only about eleven percent residual sugars.
Well, look no further than Port’s dry and grippy old man, Touriga Nacional. Touriga for all practical purposes, is Port, of course when combined with several other varieties including Touriga Franca, and fermented with neutral grape spirit, and then cask aged. But all of that in good time. Touriga Nacional is more and more available in dry varieties sometimes blended with Cabernet or Syrah for extra depth or color, but often single varietal bottled, as well.
All of the same saline and caramel notes are there, just as in Port, as well as the blackberry, and cassis notes, just none of the sweetness. Instead you get some notes of seaweed, burned rubber and harsh tannin. fortunately, all of this goes incredibly well with the funky sweetness and saltiness of Stilton.
Quinta da Pacheca Touriga Nacional Gran Reserva is a cuvée of vineyards from Douro, on the Portuguese side, south of the valley. This wine shows fantastic body, with rip roaring tannin and blackberry flavor. The acidity is mild, and mouthfeel is warm. This wine has excellent presence and depth of flavor. Secondary flavors emerge first, with some rich milk chocolate and allspice, slowly folding into savory blackcurrant jam and traditional Iberian herbaceousness and light cedar. This wine certainly holds its own against the funk of the cheese.
But what if, like me, you live Stateside, where single-bottled dry Touriga is rare, and Stilton is even rarer. Easy! Go for Touriga’s American cousin, Cabernet Sauvignon, a grape so American it pairs easily with almost any American delicacy, like pizza or Chinese. I would look for a classic Napa Valley, and avoid anything jammy. We want to replicate the high acidity, tannin, and caramel notes in Touriga - the best way to do that is to seek hillside Napa Cabernet, something budget friendly and European in style.
In place of Stilton look for the Iowa-equivalent, aged in washing-machines: Maytag! Maytag bleu cheese is made in small quantities, and sold mostly to restaurants, but it is a delightful bleu with taste and texture very similar to Stilton. Maytag is, however, a hair sweeter and a little chalkier in texture. It will it like a glove on the Hillside Cabernet, with its swelling tannin and rich textures, dry fruit and caramel flavors; and most importantly, graceful minerality and acid profile.
Mount Veeder Winery’s Cabernet Sauvignon would work perfectly in this situation, they make a very reasonably priced hillside with fantastic secondary characteristics. These dramatic bottles open with an opus of wood, mushroom, clove and vanilla bean, and then begin to settle into blackcurrant, cassis, with a tinge of acid, slate and pumice. All that’s needed is the funk of the cheese and the chalky texture to compete this perfect pairing.
Let’s France it up a bit with the final like-pairing. This time, we will choose a value-wine and a dear cheese. The French cheese roquefort, is the original when it comes to bleu cheese. The bacteria used to make bleu cheese is named after this cheese. It shares a lot in common, then with the other two cheeses as it is a cows cheese, cave ripened, with veins made from small needles that puncture the rind and allow air to the center of the cheese where the bacteria is working its winders.
Roquefort has similar body to Maytag and Stilton, yet slightly creamier, and funkier. It has a similar sweetness and chalkiness, and it weighs just about the same on a plate, slitting into chicks, just as the other two cheeses do. It’s also salty, as the other two cheeses are, but has less flavor of caramel and more of a woodiness, and mushroom flavor to be noted.
Similarly, Syrah, a notably French grape, was sad to have arrived in the Rhône region during the crusades, and planted in the Hermitage vineyard by the knight Gaspard de Stérimburg. Its original home was thought to have been Iran. DNA evidence suggests, however, that the grape is native to the Rhône, having been matched to it’s parent grape, Pinot Noir. A nice story nonetheless.
Syrah’s peppery black fruit flavor and crushed olive tapenade essences have captured the imaginations of many and occupied the vast array of vineyards in St. Joseph, Hermitage, Crozes, and Cornas. But it’s not the Rhône version that I’d recommend. I would be more apt to spring for the tougher, fruitier, and earthier variety grown in Minervois, that I think would be a better fit for the cheese, and your wallet.
Located in the heart of the Languedoc, Minervois is situated on the higher northerly-slopes close to the sea, allowing for excellent sunlight, so the tannins will ripen completely - but not so much that these wines are received in a flabby/jammy type of way. No - they’re still very French, with a particularly non-Rhône like tannic bite, and underpinnings of prosciutto and black olive. They would go well with the creamy, funkiness of the cheese.
Specifically be on the lookout for the ever-delicious Ch. Sainte-Eulalie La Cantilène Minervois La Livinière, a fantastic example from a reputable producer. This wine offers all the classic pepper that a Rhône Syrah has, with far more black-fruit flavors and candid opulence resembling that of Pomerol. This wine is blackcurrant scented with rose buds, a bit of toffee, espresso, and a cayenne finish with a striking acidity. Its explosive flavors and gritty tannin lend to cleans the palette of the funk of bleu cheese, and the wine’s expressive underbelly lends to compliment the ripe flavors of the cheese.
That's all,
~K