Blue Cheese & Red Sparkling Wine

Well for sure many of you will already be offering me advice of enjoying some fine port to run alongside blue cheese and in deed I have enjoyed a few times such pairings and they have always been enjoyable. Having tasted many varieties of sparkling wines from our growing choice of growers from around the globe, I firmly remember one tasting and one particular wine that I stored in my memory banks to certainly pair with blue cheese and thanks to a recent parcel of samples sent to me from Blacksticks Blue I just had to put things to the test.

“Blacksticks Blue is a fine creamy and not overly strong blue cheese that pairs well with many varieties of foods and since being introduced to it a few years ago I have enjoyed it with crackers and tomato chutney to it being used as a delightful filling for jacket potato. The cheese has been produced since 1932 and comes from Lancashire.”

The ideal wine pairing we suggest is the Dowie Doole NV Sparkling Shiraz ‘Moxie’ which is a great sparkling red that is deep purple in colour and very lively with bubbles and aroma giving blackberry, damson, plum and hints of spices. The taste is deep, it is heavy, an explosion of dark berry fruits with blackberry shining through. This is a great meditation wine and cries out to be paired with fine foods.

Eve Walkey, editor of Glass of Bubbly who was present at the tasting shared: “The cheese softens the wine which is a deep and heavy sparkling red. The Blacksticks is not an overly strong blue cheese so it balances well the full bodied dark stones fruit tasting experience of the sparkling shiraz. It is quite simply mouth watering and more-ish.”

Overall, this pairing of a sparkling shiraz and blue cheese was well received – The wine makes the cheese creamier and the cheese makes the wine softer so an ideal pairing.