MARRIAGE IMPOSSIBLE BETWEEN WINE AND CHEESE?ITALIAN EXPERTS AND PRODUCERS RESPOND TO CONTROVERSIAL U.S. STUDY

Cheese and wine are an impossible combination. Actually, they’re not. The results of a recent study from the University of California at Davis, according to which one of the most classic and appreciated gourmet combinations, that between wine and cheese, has been deemed detrimental to one’s capacity to taste wine, because cheese is guilty of compromising the perception of wine’s characteristics, has caused much arguing among connoisseurs.

“The results of any study - attacks Professor Roberto Rubino, Director of the magazine Caseus, and one of the top cheese experts in Italy - should be evaluated knowing full well the conditions and the objectives of that study. It is obvious, in fact, that if the sample is too limited, if the wrong cheese is combined with the wrong wine, the result cannot be anything but a disappointment. In my opinion this combination must be worked on, care must be taken in choosing both partners: we cannot think of combining a strong personality with one that cannot match it, research and balance is essential”.

Moving from one magazine to another, and changing the point of reference, here is the opinion of Marco Sabellico, Vice Director of the Gambero Rosso wine guide Vini d’Italia and best known television personality of the sector: “In an absolute sense, the study must have a foundation. The combination with cheese is obviously penalizing for a great wine, whose most important characteristics, which are the most subtle and complex, risk being compromised. Furthermore, the best combinations with cheeses refer to sweet or highly alcoholic wines, like Port for example. Wines, in short, that have much stronger characteristics. The fact that cheese and wine together can offer great pleasure is a whole other kettle of fish”.

And it is precisely this hedonistic point that two of the most important Italian wine producers, Gianni Masciarelli from Abruzzo and Tuscan Giacomo Neri, would like to move the discussion to. “Frankly, for me - declared Neri - that which is between wine and cheese seems to be a very pleasurable combination. Of course, wine is at times penalized, but this is a rule that goes for all types of combinations. It doesn’t seem like a great novelty”. Explosive like always, Masciarelli exclaimed: “it’s time to return to earth, put everything up for discussion, rethink our work, that which we want to communicate. We must understand that we are not the field of exact sciences, considerations of food and of wine must tend towards the pleasures of the person. This is the time to return to a social concept, and less elite concept of this sector, otherwise we risk speaking of the sex of the angels. A great cheese, like a great wine, is the fruit of the intuition of the work of a great producer, period”. It’s difficult to argue with that.