New World: Red wine with cheese is just crackers

All these years, many of us have been getting it wrong - we should generally be drinking white wine with cheese, not red.

Everyone knows that wine and cheese go together like, well, wine and cheese and the popular misconception that red wine is a better match is long held. However, one of the judges of the recent New World Wine Awards, Sam Kim, says whites are preferable.

"The issue is that we have such a wide variety of cheeses these days," said Kim, the publisher of the popular Wine Orbit newsletter which reviews New Zealand and international wines. "It used to be, in the old days, that you had good old cheddar and maybe some vintage cheddar - and that was it."

The pairing of cheese with wine historically comes at least partly from the wine trade itself when, in even older days, wine sellers served cheese with the wine as the lactic acid in the cheese helped to make the wine taste softer, rounded and more attractive.

"But now there is an amazing variety of cheeses; everything from very delicate goats cheese to washed rind cheeses and creamy brie - the range is huge," says Kim. "Many of those cheeses need a white, maybe with some sweetness, to bring out the flavour."

Kim says cheese is "tricky" in that it has considerable fat and salt content - a combination which makes a wine choice important.

"Salt and tannin [the substances from grape skins and wood aging which make a wine dry and which can make it age well, particularly red wine] do not work well together. You can get a very metallic taste [when trying salty cheese and red wine].

"But white wines, with some sweetness, seem to work really well and can handle the saltiness and the fat content.

Red or white wine?

"You can use a sticky [a sweet, dessert wine] if you want but I really like combinations like a delicate, crumbly goats cheese and a sauvignon blanc. That's what they do in the Loire Valley in France - they enjoy the cheese with warm bread and a sauvignon blanc; it's one of those classic matches."

But what about strong, pungent varieties, like blue cheese? It's the same rule, says Kim - a pungent, "stinky" cheese is often best enjoyed with a slightly sweeter white wine like a pinot gris or a Riesling

"You don't want to kill those delicate flavours of the cheese." He advocates a sweeter wine or even a sticky with cheese like gorgonzola or blue.

However, Kim is quick to add that there really is only one rule: The Rule Of Personal Taste. If you enjoy drinking red wine with cheese, then continue to do so.

While it is now becoming recognised that home gastronomes have been getting it wrong for decades by continuing to drink red wine with the cheese course, or at a wine and cheese gathering, there are other long-held perceptions that are a bit shaky these days - like always having red wine with a meat course and white wine with a fish meal.

Many experts say whites can be served with foods traditionally associated with red wine and the other way around. For example, Riesling also makes a good match for game such as venison and wild boar, while hapuka can be happily matched with a pinot noir. Turkey can be best partnered with chardonnay.

"There are certainly many exceptions to the rule these days," says Kim. "Now there is a lot of infusion from different cultures, like those of the Pacific and Asia - and those influences can change the flavour of the meat.

"If I was having a steak - and just a steak with little other influence - than a cabernet sauvignon is just fine. But if I was having a steak with béarnaise sauce, that changes things. That is then quite a creamy sauce."

Reds, generally more strongly flavoured than whites, can dominate all but the most robust cheese - and can similarly overpower a sauce, says Kim, not to mention the taste clash of cream and tannins.

"Things like mushroom and peppercorn sauce can change the dynamics of the dish and things like carpaccio [raw or very rare thin-sliced cured meat] are best with something like a medium riesling."