At La Cave a Fromage in central Hove my friend and I shared some carefully selected cheese and charcuterie, each cheese paired sympathetically with a glass of wine.
Yes, of course, there are loads of ways to spend a happy night chatting with friends and family in Brighton and Hove, but this really comes top of the list and has been since 2011 when I first visited and wrote a blog post about La Cave a Fromage.
My friend and I were taken on a journey of cheese and wine that took us from Monmouthshire to Acquitaine and from Hampshire to Piedmont in northern Italy.
All the charcuterie on the night was provided by Trealy farm in Monmouthshire, Wales who use only free-range British meats. Our tour guide for the evening was David Deaves, General Manager for La Cave who told us, "Jamie is doing some great curing at Trealy Farm". On our slate were thinly sliced 'coppa' style, collar of pork cured with rosemary, while in the middle of our plate was sliced Lamb salami Merguez flavoured with lemon and on the left of our slates, the 'Bresola'-style Welsh beef had been cured with cinnamon, nutmeg, chilli and black pepper.
The first cheese we tried was a camembert-style cheese Tunworth by Stacey Hedges. David explained that she'd been able to make a cheese close in flavour to camembert by using the same starter cultures. Drizzled with truffle honey the mushroom flavours emerged and despite my lack of love for truffle, this really did work well. This lovely, soft cheese was then paired with a Petit Bourgeois from the Loire that's made with the Sauvignon Blanc grape. The Bourgeois family have been making wine for the last 10 generations, which in itself speaks volumes for what they are producing. This was my favourite wine of the night, which was no surprise, as we were told it's like Sancerre but at a cheaper price point. The pairing had been chosen to cut through the cheese and it achieved that perfectly.
Our second cheese and perhaps my favourite (difficult to judge because it was all so good) was a ewe's milk cheese. Apparently, sheep's milk cheese has a natural sweetness and this one came with caramel notes and a nuttiness. Again, my choice was nicely mirrored by the fact that in the World Cheese awards this little cheese, the Ossau Iraty from Acquitaine came joint 2nd. To complement this cheese we had a sweet quince paste and a wine from Pays Doc which is often considered to have notes of stewed prunes, warm spice with a tiny hint of liquorice.
Our final cheese came from Piedmont, an Italian blue cheese made from cow's milk, the Erborinato. It was a rich, salty, velvety cheese but not overpowering. To balance this hard hitter David poured us a glass of Muscat, the Douc Providence from the South East of France. Made with a muscat grape the wine had been fortified, David explained, "replaced with grape spirit" and although it had sweetness, the flavour wasn't cloying. For David, he felt that blue cheese works best with a sweet wine to balance out of saltiness of the cheese.
Nodding as we tucked into our final cheese and wine, my friend and I agreed completely with David's approach. Our Journey through cheese and wine with a selection of three cheeses, three meats and three glasses of wine costs £24pp. With thanks to La Cave a Fromage for our tasting session.
Click here to find out all about La Cave a Fromage's cheese and wine.
Cheers!
Sarah xx
Sarah Agnew
Blogger, Modern Bric a Brac
|