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Head ‘cheese’ offers perfect wine pairings for Rogue River Blue By Paula Bandy Sep 14, 2022 12:30 AM A A I sat down recently with David Gremmels, owner and head cheesemaker of Rogue Creamery for a truly inspired tasting experience. He already had the cheese “warming,” bringing the savory blue to room temperature to maximize all that iconic Rogue River Blue flavor. Alongside was a dish of delicious local honey from Ted’s Honey Farm. Next we chose wines from Gremmels’ library. He is an advocate for local wines, wanting to keep to the flavors with a sense of place from the magnificent landscape of the Rogue Valley. This tasting of local wine and cheese celebrated the upcoming release of Rogue Creamery’s 2022 Rogue River Blue on the autumnal equinox, Sept. 22. This vintage of the highly sought-after Best Cheese in the World (2019) always is released this time of year. Still a bit young after a year of aging, its calcium phosphorus crystals still forming, it’s mouthwatering now. But Gremmels says he prefers around the holidays when there’s a bit more age to it. Rogue River Blue is very special, not just because of its prize, but because of the process that creates its iconic taste. Biodynamically grown syrah leaves are picked, hand-selected — only the perfect make it through — then soaked in local pear liqueur for a year, before being used as an outer leaf wrap for the cheese to age inside. The flavors mingle and create an extraordinary layering of tastes that change from the center where the most blue veins are, to the rind and leaf that offer more texture and the subtlety of pear. The cheese has a fudgelike quality in both richness and texture, which melts in your mouth. We had to find wines to match this complexity. These are the two that made us swoon: 2015 Belmont Syrah Rosé. Available only at The Urban Cork. This wine was slightly chilled, and Gremmels describes it as “a lovely wine that goes with everything.” This is not your usual rosé — the color sanguine but translucent — with rich notes of cane sugar, whiskey, brandied cherry and old sherry. But this wine is very dry and has luscious, vegetal notes of cardamom, roasted beets, hints of bark and peaty woods, reminding us of the crazy decadent crust under the custard at Miss Yoon in Ashland. “What I like about the cheese with this wine,” Gremmels describes, “is it spotlights the huckleberry, the pear and the peppercorn notes in the blue. The cheese, in turn, elongates the wine. I love the ripened plum and raisin notes with a hint of walnut on the finish. The combination of flavors are delicious, both meaty and sweet. With a touch of honey on the blue, there’s notes of bacon, leafy, sweet pipe tobacco, wet limestone, clay and some vanilla notes that come through the cheese.” 2017 Upper Five Syrah Biodynamic. “This wine opens with Old World, clubby aromatics,” says Gremmels, like he’s reading a page from an old book. He continues, “Such depth in the nose, rich in fruit, so smooth, balanced with ripe plum, fig, bacon and tobacco. Intrigue.” While the Belmont and Rogue River Blue complemented each other in flavor, Gremmels felt “this one really puts the cheese in the spotlight, which it should. What it’s doing is carrying those flavors forward. The fruit is accentuated by the pear-soaked syrah leaf wrap, and it’s probable these syrah leaves were picked at Upper Five in 2021.” This wine and cheese pairing is “off the charts,” he continues. “The wine is picking the flavor profiles that are so iconic to this cheese like, chocolate, vanilla, truffle and bacon.” Exquisite cheese. Elegant wines. Taste the place: Rogue Valley — land of vines and bovines. R each Paula Bandy at [email protected] and connect with her on Instagram at @pbthroughthegrapevine