Source: San Fransisco Chronicle

US Davis study challenges classic wine-cheese pairings (June 2005)

For many people, a bottle of red wine and a platter of good cheese virtually
guarantee pleasure ahead. But according to new research conducted at the
University of California at Davis, that time-tested marriage may be on the
skids.

Graduate student Berenice Madrigal has spent the past year investigating
what sound like the makings of a great party: eight red wines, eight cheeses
and what happens when you serve them together.

Thinking of purchasing a nice chunk of cheddar to show off a favorite red
wine from your cellar? Madrigal's study, undertaken for her master's degree
in viticulture and enology, suggests that you might want to reconsider that
plan.

"Our definition of a good pairing was that the two enhance each other," says
Hildegarde Heymann, professor of sensory science in Davis' viticulture and
enology department and Madrigal's adviser. "Our work shows this is probably
not true very often."

Madrigal, a petite, soft-spoken 27-year-old from Mexico City, has a degree
in food chemistry from the National Autonomous University of Mexico and a
fondness for cow's-milk Mimolette. But it was Heymann who steered Madrigal
to cheese as a thesis topic, a continuation of the professor's research into
the sensory analysis of wine with food. Cheese made a suitable subject for
exploration because the department has no kitchen.

To Heymann's surprise, few sensory scientists had analyzed the presumed
affinity of wine and cheese. A review of the literature turned up almost
nothing. A Swedish scientist, Tobias Nygren, had looked at white wine with
blue cheese -- the cheese mutes white wine flavors, he found -- but no one
apparently had looked methodically at the intersection of red wine and
cheese.

Madrigal's first task was to assemble and train a tasting panel,
volunteers -- mostly fellow students -- who would be taught to recognize
various attributes in wine and to use identical language in describing them.
For two weeks, the tasters met every day to master the sensory meaning of 20
common wine descriptors from bell pepper and berry to astringent and bitter.

Next they evaluated, tasting blind, the eight wines Madrigal had selected:
two bottles each of Pinot Noir, Cabernet Sauvignon, Merlot and Syrah. In an
effort to get wines of differing styles, Madrigal had chosen a low-priced
and high-priced wine for each varietal pair. Tasters rated each sample on a
1-to- 10 scale for every attribute. Then Madrigal juggled the sample order
and repeated the tasting twice to verify her tasters' consistency.

Following an intensive day of research at Corti Brothers, the Sacramento
fine-foods store, Madrigal settled on eight types: two hard cheeses
(Emmental and Gruyere), two cheddars (from Vermont and New York), two soft
cheeses (mozzarella and Teleme) and two blues (Gorgonzola and Stilton).
Heymann had suggested limiting the samples to cow's milk cheeses so the
analysis didn't get even more complicated.

Over sessions that lasted three months, the same trained team of
panelists -- six men and five women -- tasted each wine with each cheese,
then scored the wines on the same 20 attributes they had evaluated before.
Then Madrigal switched the tasting order, and the panelists repeated the
task twice.

Months of analysis later, Madrigal and Heymann had their results, captured
in a flurry of colorful spider graphs and multidimensional plots that the
average wine lover would be hard-pressed to decipher. But to cut to the
chase, their conclusions may not sit well with wine and cheese fans.

In virtually every case, cheese diminished everything the wine had to say.
It muted both desirable traits like berry character and less desirable
traits like astringency and bell pepper. It was an equal-opportunity
silencer, exhibiting largely the same effect on each varietal, pricey and
not.

From mild Teleme to pungent Gorgonzola, the cheeses made every wine taste
less oaky, less berry-like, less sour. The two blues had slightly more
impact on the wines than the two soft cheeses, but the differences were
insignificant for almost every trait.

"The popular press tells us it should have gone the other way," says
Heymann, meaning that cheese would enhance the wines. "We would have assumed
that for at least one cheese and one wine, we would have a hit."

The one attribute that cheese seemed to accentuate in red wine was
butteriness, a quality more often associated with malolactic Chardonnays
than with reds. But with every other wine trait, cheese of every sort
activated the mute button, a result Heymann can't easily explain.

"The decrease of astringency makes sense because you have a coating of the
palate (with cheese)," says the professor. "All you need is a coating
between the mucous membranes and astringent compounds and you diminish
astringency. That is the one effect I would say is a real effect."

The other outcomes -- that cheese diminished fruitiness, oakiness or
spiciness -- may be what Heymann call a cognitive effect. In other words,
it's in our heads. We expect that result, so we find that result. Although
she hasn't devised a way to tease apart the impact of cognition, or
expectation, she suspects it's at the root of many vaunted wine-and-cheese
marriages.

"My 'take home' is, you shouldn't worry about which wine you have with which
cheese," says Heymann. "Have the wine you love with the cheese you love. "
If most cheeses affect most red wines in a similar way, by turning down the
volume, it may be pointless to keep looking for a match that soars.

Daniel Baron, winemaker at Silver Oak Wine Cellars in Oakville, says his
extensive if informal research doesn't support the UC Davis team's
conclusions. A cheese enthusiast, Baron says he has invested a lot of time
hunting for cheeses that would complement his famed Cabernet Sauvignons.

"It's been a long journey," says the winemaker, "but in my experience, the
old rules of wine and cheese pairing hold true."

For him, that means no blue cheese ("It really brings out the bitterness in
a red wine"), no triple-cream cheeses ("iffy") and a distinct preference for
well-aged cow's and sheep's milk cheeses such as aged Gouda, Vella Dry Jack
and Manchego -- cheeses that he finds not just tolerable with his wine but
flattering.

Other tasters who, like Baron, have experienced a ghastly clash between dry
red wine and pungent blue cheese may suspect that something physiological is
to blame. As for the utter rightness on the tongue of Vella Dry Jack and
Silver Oak Cabernet -- how does Heymann explain that?

"There's that saying, 'Perception is reality,' " says the professor. "If you
perceive that the wine is better with the cheese, then it is. What's
happening in your head is no less real than what's happening on your palate,
but it's probably different."

st.helier wrote:
> Source: San Fransisco Chronicle

what on Earth possessed you to read the Comical...er...Chronicle, milud?
Do you not recall Tom Lehrer's quip at the 'Hungry I'? ("There was a
Presidential primary recently...but you may have missed it in the local
papers since it occurred during baseball season")


> "Our definition of a good pairing was that the two enhance each other," says
> Hildegarde Heymann, professor of sensory science in Davis' viticulture and
> enology department and Madrigal's adviser. "Our work shows this is probably
> not true very often."

And in other shocking news, the sun rose in the East this morning ;-)


> Next they evaluated, tasting blind, the eight wines Madrigal had selected:
> two bottles each of Pinot Noir, Cabernet Sauvignon, Merlot and Syrah. In an
> effort to get wines of differing styles, Madrigal had chosen a low-priced
> and high-priced wine for each varietal pair. Tasters rated each sample on a
> 1-to- 10 scale for every attribute. Then Madrigal juggled the sample order
> and repeated the tasting twice to verify her tasters' consistency.
>
> Following an intensive day of research at Corti Brothers, the Sacramento
> fine-foods store, Madrigal settled on eight types: two hard cheeses
> (Emmental and Gruyere), two cheddars (from Vermont and New York), two soft
> cheeses (mozzarella and Teleme) and two blues (Gorgonzola and Stilton).
> Heymann had suggested limiting the samples to cow's milk cheeses so the
> analysis didn't get even more complicated.
>

I can't help wondering where the red wines were produced. If they all
came from CA, one might question whether some European red wines with
higher acidity might not have performed differently in their study.
It's also revealing that they don't consider Cheddar to be a hard cheese
(then again, neither of their Cheddars came from Cheddar).

Interesting read nonetheless, milud. Thanks!

Back to proposal writing,
Mark Lipton

On Mon, 27 Jun 2005 14:39:34 +1200, "st.helier"
> wrote:

>In virtually every case, cheese diminished everything the wine had to say.
>It muted both desirable traits like berry character and less desirable
>traits like astringency and bell pepper.

I suspect this is the key to the origin of the popular idea that
cheese and wine go together. Most wine is cheap, and when the Old
World dominated production a lot of this cheap wine was nasty. For
this reason cheese often helped make the wine more acceptable.

Beyond that, I am not sure I know any wine authority that would make
the blanket statement that red wine goes with cheese. There are of
course particular wine and cheese combo recommendations, like port and
stilton, which did not figure in the study.

Interesting stuff though.

--
Steve Slatcher
http://pobox.com/~steve.slatcher

As others stated, nothing shocking there. Reds are harder to match than
whites, and in any case random matching seldom enhance both.

If I had to pick one cheese to match red wine, it would be aged Gouda,
followed by aged Parmigiano, mature Pecorino, aged Cheddar, or
Mimolette. See a pattern?

I find their methodology funny, at least as reported. At UC-Davis, to
ensure a variance of style, they choose 2 different price levels? As
Mark said, sounds like they choose CA wines (if they were choosing by
varietal labels).

BTW, I think of myself as a cheese guy, yet I've never knowingly eaten
anything called Teleme.

"st.helier" > wrote in message
...
> Source: San Fransisco Chronicle
>
> To Heymann's surprise, few sensory scientists had analyzed the presumed
> affinity of wine and cheese. A review of the literature turned up almost
> nothing. A Swedish scientist, Tobias Nygren, had looked at white wine with
> blue cheese -- the cheese mutes white wine flavors, he found -- but no one
> apparently had looked methodically at the intersection of red wine and
> cheese.
>
Odd to leave out whites altogether--my two favorite cheese/wine combos are
fresh goat cheese with Sauvignon Blanc, and late harvest Riesling with
blues.

"DaleW" > skrev i melding
oups.com...
>
> BTW, I think of myself as a cheese guy, yet I've never knowingly eaten
> anything called Teleme.
>
Hi Dale
:-) Google is useful, did ya know?
Teleme cheese

Definition: [TEHL-uh-may] Available mainly in northern California, Teleme
cheese is similar in texture to domestic brie. It contains about 50 percent
milk fat and has a pronounced tangy flavor. When young, Teleme's texture is
soft and creamy. As it ages, it becomes runnier and stronger in flavor. See
also cheese.

"cutecat" > skrev i melding
link.net...
> ... and late harvest Riesling with blues.
Satchmo?

;-)
Anders

Wine and cheese are not usually a good pair? Some of us have known this
for a long, long time.

How clever of you to point out the obvious.


st.helier wrote:
> Source: San Fransisco Chronicle
>
> US Davis study challenges classic wine-cheese pairings (June 2005)
>
> For many people, a bottle of red wine and a platter of good cheese virtually
> guarantee pleasure ahead. But according to new research conducted at the
> University of California at Davis, that time-tested marriage may be on the
> skids.
>
> Graduate student Berenice Madrigal has spent the past year investigating
> what sound like the makings of a great party: eight red wines, eight cheeses
> and what happens when you serve them together.
>
> Thinking of purchasing a nice chunk of cheddar to show off a favorite red
> wine from your cellar? Madrigal's study, undertaken for her master's degree
> in viticulture and enology, suggests that you might want to reconsider that
> plan.
>
> "Our definition of a good pairing was that the two enhance each other," says
> Hildegarde Heymann, professor of sensory science in Davis' viticulture and
> enology department and Madrigal's adviser. "Our work shows this is probably
> not true very often."
>
> Madrigal, a petite, soft-spoken 27-year-old from Mexico City, has a degree
> in food chemistry from the National Autonomous University of Mexico and a
> fondness for cow's-milk Mimolette. But it was Heymann who steered Madrigal
> to cheese as a thesis topic, a continuation of the professor's research into
> the sensory analysis of wine with food. Cheese made a suitable subject for
> exploration because the department has no kitchen.
>
> To Heymann's surprise, few sensory scientists had analyzed the presumed
> affinity of wine and cheese. A review of the literature turned up almost
> nothing. A Swedish scientist, Tobias Nygren, had looked at white wine with
> blue cheese -- the cheese mutes white wine flavors, he found -- but no one
> apparently had looked methodically at the intersection of red wine and
> cheese.
>
> Madrigal's first task was to assemble and train a tasting panel,
> volunteers -- mostly fellow students -- who would be taught to recognize
> various attributes in wine and to use identical language in describing them.
> For two weeks, the tasters met every day to master the sensory meaning of 20
> common wine descriptors from bell pepper and berry to astringent and bitter.
>
> Next they evaluated, tasting blind, the eight wines Madrigal had selected:
> two bottles each of Pinot Noir, Cabernet Sauvignon, Merlot and Syrah. In an
> effort to get wines of differing styles, Madrigal had chosen a low-priced
> and high-priced wine for each varietal pair. Tasters rated each sample on a
> 1-to- 10 scale for every attribute. Then Madrigal juggled the sample order
> and repeated the tasting twice to verify her tasters' consistency.
>
> Following an intensive day of research at Corti Brothers, the Sacramento
> fine-foods store, Madrigal settled on eight types: two hard cheeses
> (Emmental and Gruyere), two cheddars (from Vermont and New York), two soft
> cheeses (mozzarella and Teleme) and two blues (Gorgonzola and Stilton).
> Heymann had suggested limiting the samples to cow's milk cheeses so the
> analysis didn't get even more complicated.
>
> Over sessions that lasted three months, the same trained team of
> panelists -- six men and five women -- tasted each wine with each cheese,
> then scored the wines on the same 20 attributes they had evaluated before.
> Then Madrigal switched the tasting order, and the panelists repeated the
> task twice.
>
> Months of analysis later, Madrigal and Heymann had their results, captured
> in a flurry of colorful spider graphs and multidimensional plots that the
> average wine lover would be hard-pressed to decipher. But to cut to the
> chase, their conclusions may not sit well with wine and cheese fans.
>
> In virtually every case, cheese diminished everything the wine had to say.
> It muted both desirable traits like berry character and less desirable
> traits like astringency and bell pepper. It was an equal-opportunity
> silencer, exhibiting largely the same effect on each varietal, pricey and
> not.
>
> From mild Teleme to pungent Gorgonzola, the cheeses made every wine taste
> less oaky, less berry-like, less sour. The two blues had slightly more
> impact on the wines than the two soft cheeses, but the differences were
> insignificant for almost every trait.
>
> "The popular press tells us it should have gone the other way," says
> Heymann, meaning that cheese would enhance the wines. "We would have assumed
> that for at least one cheese and one wine, we would have a hit."
>
> The one attribute that cheese seemed to accentuate in red wine was
> butteriness, a quality more often associated with malolactic Chardonnays
> than with reds. But with every other wine trait, cheese of every sort
> activated the mute button, a result Heymann can't easily explain.
>
> "The decrease of astringency makes sense because you have a coating of the
> palate (with cheese)," says the professor. "All you need is a coating
> between the mucous membranes and astringent compounds and you diminish
> astringency. That is the one effect I would say is a real effect."
>
> The other outcomes -- that cheese diminished fruitiness, oakiness or
> spiciness -- may be what Heymann call a cognitive effect. In other words,
> it's in our heads. We expect that result, so we find that result. Although
> she hasn't devised a way to tease apart the impact of cognition, or
> expectation, she suspects it's at the root of many vaunted wine-and-cheese
> marriages.
>
> "My 'take home' is, you shouldn't worry about which wine you have with which
> cheese," says Heymann. "Have the wine you love with the cheese you love. "
> If most cheeses affect most red wines in a similar way, by turning down the
> volume, it may be pointless to keep looking for a match that soars.
>
> Daniel Baron, winemaker at Silver Oak Wine Cellars in Oakville, says his
> extensive if informal research doesn't support the UC Davis team's
> conclusions. A cheese enthusiast, Baron says he has invested a lot of time
> hunting for cheeses that would complement his famed Cabernet Sauvignons.
>
> "It's been a long journey," says the winemaker, "but in my experience, the
> old rules of wine and cheese pairing hold true."
>
> For him, that means no blue cheese ("It really brings out the bitterness in
> a red wine"), no triple-cream cheeses ("iffy") and a distinct preference for
> well-aged cow's and sheep's milk cheeses such as aged Gouda, Vella Dry Jack
> and Manchego -- cheeses that he finds not just tolerable with his wine but
> flattering.
>
> Other tasters who, like Baron, have experienced a ghastly clash between dry
> red wine and pungent blue cheese may suspect that something physiological is
> to blame. As for the utter rightness on the tongue of Vella Dry Jack and
> Silver Oak Cabernet -- how does Heymann explain that?
>
> "There's that saying, 'Perception is reality,' " says the professor. "If you
> perceive that the wine is better with the cheese, then it is. What's
> happening in your head is no less real than what's happening on your palate,
> but it's probably different."