How should I pair wines with my cheeses?Updated 2 years ago

There are no hard rules here, so the best thing to do is be open to experimentation. There are however some useful guidelines that might help get you started! Contrary to popular belief, white wine is actually a safer bet than red wine in terms of its versatility. Your biggest problem when pairing wine and cheese is going to be the tannins in the wine and the acidity in the cheese clashing, and leaving the trademark 'alcohol/ethanol' taste in your mouth, stripping out all the lovely complexity and balance in the wine and cheese which nobody wants. White wine lacks the punchy tannins of red wine, hence it is a bit safer. 

Our go-to all-rounder is a lightly oaked Chardonnay. Aged in the barrel, the wine will have benefited from malolactic fermentation (MLF) where malic acid converts to lactic acid, and you get that lovely, creamy, rounded flavour you get in a great Chardonnay. This creaminess matches perfectly with cheese, as when cheese matures lactose breaks down and converts into...lactic acid! If you want to stick with red wine though, ensure you pair it with punchy aged cheeses that can hold their own. At the other end of the spectrum, fresh, sharp, zingy white wines are always a great match for fresh goat's milk cheeses.