National Wine and Cheese Day
“Wine and cheese are ageless companions, like aspirin and aches, or June and the moon, or good people and noble ventures.” – M.F.K. Fisher
There are some things in the world that were just meant to go together, like chocolate and peanut butter, oil and vinegar, rock and roll, and of course wine and cheese!
Wine And Cheese Day celebrates this eternal bonding. Pairings of food almost universally involve pairing an astringent or acidic food, like wine, with a fatty food like cheese. The reason isn’t just incidental, but in fact, is one of the secrets of culinary science that’s used in creating truly delectable meals.
Foods like cheese, with its fatty texture and often pungent flavors, tend to coat palates with strong flavors and lubricate our mouths with fat with every bite we take. We love the flavors, but the constant build-up of flavor, fats, and protein can often become overwhelming, and that’s where wine comes to the rescue!
Wine can bring many elements to a food pairing, but two of the most important are acidity and astringency. Astringent foods have a tendency to bind with the elements in saliva that lubricate and cause them to clump and lose their ability to lubricate. Acidic foods tend to cut through some flavors (proteins and fats) while balancing others (saltiness). Pairing the right wine with the right cheese can lead to a harmonious pairing that leaves us reaching for our glass after each bite, and each sip cleansing our palate and setting our taste buds up for another explosion of flavor.
Wine And Cheese Day celebrates this pairing of foods and the ways they interact to make each one even more enjoyable!
How to celebrate Wine And Cheese Day: National Wine and Cheese Day encourages us to try wines and cheese in combinations we’ve never tried before; we can step away from our ordinary bottle and learn something new. Sampling the complexities in sweetness and acidity and comparing them at a tasting makes for an enjoyable experience. When we add friends to the adventure, National Wine and Cheese Day becomes a celebration, too!
Find a favorite wine and sample it with some of your favorite cheeses. Post photos of your favorite pairings on social media and tag #FarmsteadCW on Insta.