With the festive season coming up, it’s the perfect time to entertain (and impress!) your besties with a super chic bash! While a dinner or cocktail party is always a good standby, why not mix it up with a fête unlike the norm? Try a wine & cheese shindig – everyone gets to nibble on delish goodies and you get to boast about your food expertise! Wait, what? You have zero knowledge of wine or cheese? No, problem! Food Republic is here to get you through the basics.
Say “cheese!”
As a rule of thumb, when serving cheeses, always start with the most mild, and progress from there, saving the most pungent and strongest for last. For softer cheeses, the only thing you’ll need is a cheese board (we prefer slate) and knife for your guests to serve themselves. For harder, aged cheeses you’ll need to arm yourself with a plane or cheese cutter to minimize effort and mess.
Quick Tip: Always (and we mean always) serve your cheeses at room temperature to maximize its flavor.
Bring on the vino!
When serving luscious, creamy cheeses, pair with more acidic wines (most often white wine) to balance out the flavor. In contrast, harder cheeses like aged Parmesan pair well with red wines that have a higher tannin level – the aspect of wine that makes it “dry” (when stumped about red wine, just mutter something about the tannins and everyone will think you’re a grape genius!).
Quick Tip: For extremely dry reds, be sure you’ve got a carafe on hand so that the wine can aerate and breathe.
