For our pre-Yom Kippur meal, Peter chose an excellent wine produced by his close friends in Paso Robles to be paired with my mother's meal -- Tres Blanc crafted by Per Cazo wines. It is a blend of three classic Rhone white grape varietals -- Grenache Blanc, Roussanne, and Viognier. As they say, "it is a white wine for red wine drinkers."
At first sip, I thought maybe it was somewhat heavy for me who doesn't particularly like medium to heavier white wines but once I had it with the food my mind totally changed -- the wine blossomed into something fantastic. It was floral and aromatic, yet smooth and lightly buttery, with an excellent citrusy crispness and a light peachy apricot-y finish. In that moment, Per Cazo's statement about it being a white wine for red wine drinkers completely clicked for me.
So I got to thinking about what the correct cheese pairings for this wine would be. You wouldn't go with the classic aged goat's milk cheeses like a Chevrot or the ash ripened cheeses like Valencay nor would you go with a straight forward chevre. This wine needed a bigger flavor to go with it -- yet it needed to be smooth with a slight nuttiness to it.
How about Bellwether Farms' San Andreas crafted in Sonoma County? An aged raw sheep's milk cheese that is light yet heavy. You might be thinking, what does she mean by that? By that I mean it has that nice nutty buttery roundness of a classic sheep's milk cheese but it has not been aged for more than two to four months, so it still has a light, bright, citrusy side to it while still being somewhat farmsteady, slightly gamey, and most certainly rustic.
I think these two together would work wonders. Please feel free to check out Per Cazo's website, they ship nationwide: http://percazocellars.com and most certainly grab a morsel of San Andreas at Murray's. Thank you Peter for sharing the bottle and allowing this little pairing exploration.
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