Cheese at Stratus Enjoy Wine Tasting and More

Food and Wine Pairing with a Fromager in Niagara-on-the-Lake

Apr 4, 2009 Allison Anthony

Spend an afternoon tasting cheese with Scott McKenzie while he shares his knowledge, favourite shops and the reason he prefers Stratus wine to enhance any cheese plate.

Cheese @ Stratus is one of the innovative food and wine seminars available from the vineyard as part of their @ Stratus series.

The idea is to allow local chefs and food professionals to share insights and their expertise, all while tasting Stratus wines.

Private Tasting Room

It is a good idea to arrive slightly before the seminar; this will allow time to have a look around, perhaps taste a little wine and meet some of the friendly people who work for the vineyard.

Cheese @ Stratus is held in the private tasting room. A brilliant spot, quite literally, as the room is more window than wall. This allows for a spectacular view of the vineyard and patio and even a glimpse into the barrel room as well.

Scott McKenzie, originally from Canada’s east coast, is now one of Toronto’s top Fromagers. His passion for cheese and engaging personality makes the afternoon as much fun as it is delicious.

“Cheese is alive, it’s breathing,” he says, and unlike wine, the smell of the cheese is not always the best indicator of flavour. In fact, McKenzie points out, that only seven out of one hundred points are for aroma when assessing cheese.

Although each seminar will highlight different cheeses and shops, today everything comes from the Cheese Boutique in Toronto, one of McKenzie’s favourites.

“You should try at least five times the amount of cheese than what you plan to buy,” he says, and follow the cheese monger’s suggestions. He will know what cheese is perfectly ripe at that precise moment.

His first rule of the day…. taste with the eyes closed.

Stratus Tasting Flight and Cheese Plate

The first wine tasted is the 2007 Stratus Riesling with a raw cow milk cheese from France called Affinè au Chablis. Alone, the cheese has a nutty flavour, but when tasting with the Riesling, the combination of citrus and apple in the wine turns the cheese to a buttery honey in the mouth.

Fromagers call this “making soup” and encourage swishing the cheese and wine together in order to experience both tastes fully.

The Riesling is nice but it’s the signature Stratus White that garners McKenzie’s excitement. He uses this particular wine for almost all of his cheese plates because of the way “the wine travels through the cheese.”

He mentions that it is easier to pair white wine with a cheese plate rather than a red. The tannins in red wine tend to make for some odd taste combinations and he goes on to prove this point.

The 2005 Stratus Red paired with Zamarano, a raw sheep milk cheese from Spain, has an odd, funky taste. Yet try that same cheese with the ’06 White and the sensation is that of a mild blue cheese.

Of course the day isn’t complete until a bottle of Stratus Icewine Red is opened. The first vineyard to ever produce a red icewine, the 2007 has a taste of strawberry and rhubarb making it almost too good to taint with the cheese. Although, paired with the Blue de Vercors from France the icewine ends up tasting like crème brûlée instead.

Cheese @ Stratus is an interesting afternoon filled with learning, discussion and some of the best wine Niagara has to offer. Upcoming seminar- April 18th at 1 pm. Cost: $35.00 per person.

References

Stratus Vineyards- 905- 468-1806

Cheese Boutique- 416-762-6292

The copyright of the article Cheese at Stratus Enjoy Wine Tasting and More in E Canada Travel is owned by Allison Anthony. Permission to republish Cheese at Stratus Enjoy Wine Tasting and More in print or online must be granted by the author in writing.