wine and cheese pairings

Pulling together a cheese platter for your next holiday soiree seems like an übereasy task — and it should be, if you know the few basic fundamentals of cheese pairing.

Take a few tips from Cathy Strange, cheese buyer from Whole Foods Market, before you stock up your party pantry, and you'll be sure to have a cheese plate that's as dynamic as your Christmas party conversation.

1. Your platter's only as solid as your cheese is delicious. "If you pick up mass-produced cheese that's more focused on low price than quality, that will be reflected in the tasting process," Strange says. If you're on a budget, she recommends chatting with your local cheese monger instead and asking to see what they're excited about this holiday season given the budget you have in mind.

Keep reading for a few more basic cheese pairing bytes.

Last weekend was the Pebble Beach Food and Wine Festival. Since we couldn't make it, we asked cheese expert Laura Werlin to give us a behind-the-scenes look! Here she discusses her seminars and provides some pointers on how to pair wine with her specialty, grilled cheese.
When you think of Pebble Beach, you probably think of golf. But not me. All I can think of is that it’s the home of the utterly, completely, amazing over-the-top Pebble Beach Food & Wine event. The fourth annual extravaganza, which featured chefs like Tom Colicchio, Anne Burrell, Tim Love, Daniel Boulud, Stephen Pyles, Christopher Kostow, Chris Cosentino, Michael Chiarello, Gary Danko, Ming Tsai, and approximately 85 others, took place over a sunny weekend in April. I was lucky enough to be one of the presenters to do what I do — say cheese, of course. I gave two seminars, each with a different theme. One was grilled cheese and wine pairing (yep, you read that right) and the other was cheese paired with the über impressive wines of Oregon winery Domaine Serene.

For the cheese and Domaine Serene presentation, I paired six American cheeses with five wines that included Chardonnay, Pinot, Rosé and Syrah.

To see what cheeses she paired with the wines from Oregon, keep reading.