Geoffrey Zakarian's Wine Pairing Tips

Hi, my name is Jeffrey Ziccarion. I'm gonna take the age-old pairing of cheese and wine to another level just for you. I recommend four types of wine, a rosé, well chilled, a pinot noir, a cabernet, and a chardonnay, and everybody loves chardonnay. So what does that mean for cheese selection? Well, it really means that you have to know what cheeses sort of go with what wine. First of all, let's talk about my all-time favorite wine, which is rosé. So right away, very crisp. I'm smelling nuances of like melon and strawberry, and it's very delicious. So I'm thinking something nutty, Italian, maybe a Fiscalini Farms San Joaquin Gold Cheese, which is really a beautiful cow's milk cheese, buttery, aged for 12 months, and has such a sensational finish. One of my favorite cheeses of all. Next up, this is a wine that I always try to introduce to people who don't like red wine. It's pinot noir, made from the pinot noir grapes. It's light Bollies, very complex, and it's great with lean meats, poultry, pork, lamb. Now, as far as cheese goes, this beautiful St. Mary's Gouda is really fantastic. Cave-cured, Wisconsin, delicious, grass-fed, the best of the best. This is where we are now. We're at the Cabernet Sauvignon. These are big wines, aged in French and American oak, very young, full-bodied, very complex, and I'm pairing it with a beautiful Rogue Creamery Gorgonzola Blue. Now, gorgonzola is what they call the stinky cheese, but it's stinky for a reason. It's cow's milk. It's aged for 90 days in a cave. It's like this beautiful, luscious, aged sweet cream vitality, and a little bit of sourness from the veins. This is a big wine and a big cheese, is one of my favorite pairings of all time. This is a 2020 Chardonnay with a Face Rock Creamery Aged Cheddars. I'm smelling this gorgeous sort of symphony of thyme and rosemary and luscious lemon flavors, and that's the way you want Chardonnay. So, next time you're thinking of cheese and wine, think of these four pairings to make your day really special.