The Costco Find That Brings New Meaning To Pairing Wine And Cheese
For many folks, properly pairing wine with food can be intimidating. People go to school for this kind of thing, and sommelier training is no joke! Whether you're in the mood for a cheese board and a glass of wine or you're planning a fancy meal to impress, it can be a real bummer to get the combination wrong — but when you get it right, the pairing elevates both. Luckily, Costco just made it a lot easier to get it right: Just pair the cheese with the type of wine it was made with.
In Costco's cheese section, alongside real Parmigiano Reggiano, you can find Sartori's Merlot Bellavitano. The cheese, which has won multiple top awards many times over at the American Cheese Society Competition (including first place at least three times) hails from Wisconsin cheesemaker Sartori. It is a hard cheese soaked in merlot wine, giving its edible rind a deep purple hue and imparting fruity notes of plum and berries into the creamy, rich cheese.
For a no-brainer perfect pairing, grab a bottle of merlot. Serve the cheese with assorted berries and crackers or crusty bread and nuts. If you really hate merlot but you're game to try this cheese, the deep berry notes of a shiraz can stand in, or it can be paired with a lighter but still juicy pinot noir.
How a soaked cheese is made
Bellavitano isn't a classic type of cheese; it was developed by Sartori in 2008. The creamery describes it as "Rich, caramelly cheddar meets savory farmstead Parmesan." It is a hard but creamy cheese cow's milk, like an aged cheddar, but it has the crystalline crunch of a well-aged Parmigiano Reggiano. These crystals form from calcium lactate, which is produced as cheese ages from increased lactic acid bonding with calcium ions. As the cheese continues to age, the calcium lactate crystallizes. The crystals form where moisture collects, which is why you'll often see them on the rind. With the soaked Bellavitano, as you might imagine, the cheese spends quite some time in the wet environment of a merlot bath.
There are two main ways to bathe cheese in a flavorful liquid like wine. The first is to form the cheese, press the whey out of the curds, and mold the cheese. Then, cheesemakers regularly wash the cheese in or with the wine. This will lead to a highly flavorful rind but with little effect on the cheese paste within. A very marbled effect is achieved by soaking the cheese curds in wine before pressing them into molds. Both of these practices can be paired for a very wine-forward effect on the cheese. The Merlot Bellavitano is a wine-washed edible rind cheese.
Pairing Costco cheese and wine
Besides enjoying Sartori Merlot Bellavitano with its namesake grape, there are plenty of other easy ways to enjoy Costco cheeses with wine, though there are a few rules to follow. First, pair wines with cheeses of similar intensity. For example, a really strong cheese like a Stilton blue cheese needs a strong wine to stand up to it, like port. A sharp aged cheddar like the Kirkland Signature Coastal Cheddar needs a full-bodied wine like a cabernet sauvignon. A milder, nuttier cheese like gruyere, on the other hand, works with something a little more subdued and slightly lighter-bodied, like a Beaujolais or pinot noir (which Sartori also recommends for Bellavitano). Soft cheeses like Kirkland's Imported French Brie pair best with sparkling wine; the bubbles cut through the thick creaminess.
Tangy Kirkland goat cheese would go well with wines that have minerality and citrus notes; a sauvignon blanc, Chenin blanc, or almost any dry white wine from the volcanic soil of Sicily would work well. Wines that come from the same regions as the cheese tend to work well together, so Kirkland Signature manchego with a Spanish rioja, tempranillo, Garnacha, or malbec is a safe bet. Aged cheeses are sharp and nutty; Costco's Parmigiano Reggiano is aged for two years and needs a bold red wine to match it, like an Italian Montepulciano or Sangiovese. Ultimately, though, it should be low-stress; as long as you like both the cheese and the wine, you'll be just fine.