If you’re like most people, your exposure to blue cheese might be limited to Cobb salads, dipping sauce for hot wings, and exotic cheeseburgers. It lends a pungent, salty, tangy taste that complements many flavors, especially strong flavors.
If you’ve never tried it, here’s the #1 rule: if you are allergic to Penicillin as I am, you should avoid “blue cheese.” I ate a fair amount of blue cheese, always getting sick after, until I realized these two issues were connected. My cheese life is happier now, but I sure do miss those blues and greens.
What is blue cheese?
Blue cheese — or blue vein cheese — can be produced with cow’s milk, sheep’s milk, or goat’s milk. The blue comes from cultures of Penicillium roqueforti (the same genus of mold that creates the similarly named antibiotic drug) and the final color may be blue, gray, green, or even black. The “veins” appear where the cheese is “spiked” to let oxygen in to encourage the growth of the mold inside the cheese (kind of like aerating your lawn). The most well-known blue cheeses are Roquefort from France, Gorgonzola from Italy, and Stilton from England.
This picture of blue cheeses of the world is from Cook’s Illustrated and is part of a great article to learn more about the world of blue cheese.
What does blue cheese taste like?
Like most cheeses, the kind of milk greatly influences the overall taste of a blue cheese — goat’s milk cheeses are tangier, sheep’s milk cheeses have a characteristic unctuousness, and cow’s milk cheeses are creamier (tasting). Unlike other cheeses, the specific cultures used to make them blue also greatly influences the overall taste of a blue cheese. They tend to be salty and as the mold digests both protein and fat in the milk, a variety of other flavors emerge: savory, mushroomy, tangy, buttery, or herbaceous notes.
Where to Buy Great Blue Cheese
When it comes to buying great blue cheese, you can stop by your local grocer or order online.
Normally I advocate popping by your local store for cheese because it’s fresh and in smaller quantities than online. One exception to that advice is when you’re buying blue cheese.
Why buy blue cheese online? One word: selection. If you stop by your local store (unless it’s a serious cheese shop) you might get two or three blue cheese options. When you shop online, say at Murray’s Cheese, you can choose among 26 different kinds of blue cheese!
Now if you’re just looking for one blue cheese for your cheese platter, you don’t need that much choice, but if you’re looking to explore blue (and green) cheeses of the world, your local store might be limiting.
Classic Blue Cheese & Wine Pairings
While many people quickly think of pairing blue cheeses with red wine, they’re overlooking the magic of a dessert wine with a blue. Here’s what to know about selecting a dessert wine and a blue cheese.
Dessert wine is sweet and intended to be paired with sugary treats like chocolate, candied fruits, and fruit pies. This is in contrast with something like a Moscato, which can taste very sweet because it lacks sufficient acidity, but is not usually as sweet as a dessert wine. A good quality sweet wine made from any grape variety must have acidity to balance the sweetness — it’s what keeps good dessert wine from being cloying.
There are a number of classic dessert wine styles:
Fortified wine has additional alcohol added during fermentation. This includes Madeira, Marsala, Port, Sherry, and Vermouth. They can be made in a sweet or dry style. Fortified wines often make great cheese pairings as they tend to cut through the creaminess of the cheese. Pair Marsala with Gorgonzola Dolce and Stilton with Tawny Port or Ruby Port.
Ice Wine is a common dessert wine in North America, primarily produced in Canada. In this case the grapes are left on the vines until they freeze, then harvested and made into wine. The extra hang time allows sugars to continue to build up in the grapes (the source of the sweetness) so fermentation doesn’t end up converting all of the sugars into alcohol.
Side note: As the spouse of a Canadian I’ve heard many times how Canadian wine isn’t very good. I disagree. Canada produces many kinds of dry wine, and many of them are quite good. Like everywhere else, seek out smaller producers who pay more attention to their craft than to their marketing.
Late-Harvest wines, often a Riesling or Viognier, are a step back from Ice Wine with more nuance. The grapes for these wines are also left on the vine past when they’d normally be harvested, but harvest is completed before a freeze. These are my favorite sweet wines.
Sauternes is a region in France (part of Bordeaux) noted for their exceptional dessert wines produced from mostly Sauvignon Blanc, mixed with Semillon, and sometimes Muscadelle. The sweetness comes from late harvest and the “noble rot” (the fungus otherwise known as Botrytis cinerea). The fungus causes the grapes to become partially raisined, which creates concentrated and unique flavors in the wine. This is also true of Tokaij from Hungary and Trockenbeerenauslese from Germany and Austria.
One of the most expensive wines in the world is a dessert wine from Chateau d’Yquem, where a bottle of the current vintage costs $275-400 but collectible vintages dating back to the winery’s start in the 1500s cost as much as $30,000 (for an 1847 in very good condition). You can usually find a decent half-bottle (standard for dessert wines) for around $30, but you can expect to pay more. You can buy full size (750mL) bottles and magnums, too.
Classic Blue Cheese & Wine Pairings
Whether you start with your wine, you start with your cheese, blue cheeses drive the pairing recommendations. So I’ve assembled them both ways, starting with Classic Blue Cheeses and my top choices for pairings. Where possible I recommend red wine pairings, however most of the time you should stick with sweet wine for blue cheese.
Stilton (UK)
The cheese (Budget-friendly): Murray’s Stilton
Salty, Spicy, Fudgy (consistency, not flavor) / Cow Milk / Pasteurized / Age: 8 Months
Buy it for $14 / 0.5 lb
The cheese (Upgrade): Colston Bassett Stilton
Fudgy (consistency, not flavor), Silky, Salty / Cow Milk / Pasteurized / Age: 4 Months
Buy it for $21 / 0.5 lb
Murray’s StiltonColston Bassett Stilton
Sweet wine pairing recommendations Port is Stilton’s classic wine partner. You can choose others, but I’m going for classic here.
Port (Budget-friendly) / Ruby Quinta das Carvalhas / Taste match: Dark berries, sweet, jammy, tinge of spice / $20 for 750mL
Port (Upgrade) / Warre’s Otima 10 Year Tawny / Taste match: Bright, hazelnut, walnut, sesame, toffee, cinnamon / 500mL for $30
Red wine pairing recommendations If you forgo my specific recommendations, you want red wines that are tannic and fruit-forward.
Sauternes / Chateau Suduiraut Sauternes / Taste match: Full-bodied, juicy, orange peel, white pepper, truffle / 375mL for $40 or $45-75 for 750mL (often available at retail pre-aged)
Red wine pairing recommendations Here you really want fruit-forward berry flavors and a hint of chocolate or cocoa
Sauternes (Upgrade) / Chateau Suduiraut Sauternes / Taste match: Full-bodied, juicy, orange peel, white pepper, truffle / 375mL for $40 or $45-75 for 750mL (often available at retail pre-aged)
Red wine pairing recommendations You need a really robust red wine to hold up to Roquefort. When choosing a Malbec, look for a high-altitude wine with bold tannins, not something with soft tannins or vanilla flavor. Ripasso (the style of Amarone) is a natural fit because it’s usually a touch sweet.
Inspired by frequent questions from friends and family about different wines and wine practices, I write Useful Wine Guides so that people I don’t know might benefit from my knowledge and desire to share information, too.
