A proposed solution:  take in your champagne with a flight of cheeses that will nourish you while accentuating the flavors of both food and drink.  Your taste buds and your friends will thank you for the effort!

First, let’s talk champagne, also called effervescent or sparkling wine when produced outside the Champagne region in France.  For this method of vinification, grapes do not need to ripen as much as other wine grapes, so they can be grown in regions farther north.  In the United States, this means that sparkling wine is produced in cold weather states like Massachusetts, Oregon, New York and Washington state. 

(See http://www.thebetterdrink.com/ for links to these vineyards.)  

There are two types of champagne for which I will recommend cheeses, those from the Chardonnay grape and the Pinot Noir grape.  Blanc de Blanc champagnes and sparkling wines are made from the Chardonnay grape and are very light and delicate, while the Blanc de Noir style comes from the Pinot Noir grape and has a heartier feel.

To break it down even further, I am considering only dry and extra dry levels of sweetness.  Dry champagnes are the least sweet and are signified by the brut classification.  Slightly sweeter champagnes are called extra sec, or extra-dry. 

(Demi-Sec and Doux are classifications for sweeter dessert wines, whose pairings are beyond the scope of this article.)

Here are my suggestions for pairing Blanc de Blanc and Blanc de Noir champagne with a cheese plate.  The cheeses are listed in order of strength.  Choose no more than four cheeses from each list.  The lists are, to some degree, interchangeable.  All of the cheeses have possible substitutions that you can, and should, ask your local cheesemonger about.  

Brut/Extra Sec/Extra Dry - Blanc de Blanc:

1.  Pierre Robert – A rich triple cream with a bright white rind, and a paste that is luxuriously creamy.   

2.  Spenwood – This gentle yet elaborate sheep’s milk cheese comes from the English countryside.

3.  Keen’s Farmhouse Cheddar- old-school English cheddar, tangy and deep.

4.  Vacherin Mont D’or – Encircled by spruce bark, this round cheese has a full, robust creaminess that evokes a mid-summer pasture in France.

5.  Langres – Strong and tangy little washed rind cheese, 2 ounces of reddish-orange complexity.

Brut/ Extra Sec/Extra Dry -  Blanc de Noir:

1. Brillat Savarin - An unbelievably supple triple cream with a fancy French pedigree, pure opulent buttery bliss.

2. Nancy’s Hudson Valley Camembert – An elaborate yet gentle flavor in this blend of cow and sheep’s milk, one of the greatest American cheeses when fresh.

3. Gruyere - Delightfully smooth and nutty, pleases every palate.  (Buy only A.O.C. certified gruyere to ensure quality.)

4. Cantal – An ancient English masterpiece, a golden mountain cheese that is both woodsy and meaty.

5. Aged Gouda - (3 years)- Should be bright orange and hard to cut, melts in your mouth with a sonorous saltiness and a pronounced spiciness. 

In general, what makes a good cheese and wine pairing?   Many experts advise trying to pair from within geographic regions, where similar terroir can lend an almost magically parallel atmospheric quality to both cheese and wine.  If it is possible for you to obtain products from the same region, such as Massachusetts, New York, or France, give it a try, using the suggested types and styles of the cheeses above as a guideline for matching flavors.  

The essential concept when pairing any wine and cheese is that you first want to take time to really think over the flavors themselves and then consider how they are interacting with each other.  Pause often as you taste the pairings.  Even if you are in the midst of a lively New Years Eve celebration try to savor each bit and to connect the essence of the taste back to the very plots of earth from which your wine and cheese were crafted.   Then, toast to a year of exploring new pairings! 

As cheese is a living, breathing food, each variety with its own unique properties, different cheeses ripen throughout the seasons.  The cheeses that are best eaten at this time of year have been made from summer milk and aged throughout the fall.  Now they are out of their caves and carefully regulated storerooms and into the cases at cheese shops and specialty food stores, ready for consumption.   

In fact, the very best cheeses are often winter’s seasonal cheeses, made special because the animals providing the milk are less likely to reproduce under staggered breeding conditions and more likely to breed naturally.  During the summer months, these well cared for animals are out in the pasture, eating a diversity of local grasses, shrubs and flowers.  This is called the terroir, the distinctive taste that land brings to the milk of the animals who graze upon it.  Terroir is what makes summer milk richer than winter milk, when an animal’s diet is often mostly silage and hay. 

Cheeses worthy of cheese plate status are described as either genuine farmhouse cheese or artisinal cheese.  Farmhouse cheese, the best, is made from one herd, on-site, using traditional methods.  Artisinal cheese, a close second, is made with milk from local farms or a local cooperative.   Ask specifically for cheeses made using farmhouse or arstisinal methods to ensure high quality and nuanced flavors.

A cheese plate should have variety, both in types of milk and in styles of cheese.  For a holiday cheese plate, I recommend four cheeses that are currently in their prime: one blue cheese, one mild semi-hard cheese, one stronger washed rind cheese, and one traditional chevre.   (The substitutions offered are not necessarily seasonal cheeses.)

1. Colston Basset Stilton
2. Berkswell
3. Reblochon
4. Saint Maure De Touraine

The cheese most often associated with the winter season is blue cheese.  Of these, the most famous Christmas cheese is undoubtedly Stilton, made of cow’s milk in Great Britain, and this is the first cheese I recommend.  Be sure to buy only the Colston-Basset brand, which has a rich, smooth and zesty flavor, as it is the last of its kind made artisinally.  If Colston-Basset Stilton is unavailable, try Roquefort (any variety) from France, or Great Hill Blue, from Massachusetts.  All are excellent.

The second cheese I recommend is Berkswell, a sheep’s milk cheese also from Great Britain; it is quite simply the most delicious cheese I know.  To fully appreciate the flavor, take a full 10 seconds to smell, taste and savor a bite.  Berkswell can be described as nutty, dense and gentle yet complex.  Other semi-hard sheep’s milk cheeses that can stand in for Berkswell are Spenwood (Great Britain), Abbaye de Beloc (France), or Ossau Iraty (France).

Now for a stronger cheese, I recommend Reblochon, a washed rind cow’s milk cheese from France.  Reblochon is not quite a full flavor cheese, so it is sure to satisfy a wide range of tastes.  It is a creamy, grassy, robust cheese that has been aging for four to five weeks.   If you cannot find Reblochen, other excellent washed rind cheeses from France are Epoisses and Livarot, although both are more pungent that Reblochon.        

Finally, we need a cheese made from goat’s milk.  I recommend a traditional chevre that has been aged and hardened so that it is now somewhat firm to the touch.  Sainte Maure De Touraine, from France, is an elaborate, tangy and rich cheese shaped like a log.   If Saint Maure it is not available, ask your cheesemonger for guidance in choosing another aged traditional chevre.

A growing holiday trend is to incorporate fruit into fresh chevre.  If this is your type of thing, these cheeses can be excellent, especially if they are locally made.   

It is generally suggested that the mildest cheese on a plate be tasted first and so on.  The mildest of the these four is Berkswell, then St. Maure De Touraine, Reblochen and finally Stilton. 

To round out the plate, add fresh bread, fruit, chutneys, or charcuterie.  Serve with wine, beer, cider, or sparkling juice.  Enjoy!