by Bertrand Celce, France
Somewhere in the Loire Valley
(I'll keep the location undisclosed if you don’t mind)
This is a place I visit from time to time. Marguerite (at right) and her husband live in a house at the base of a hill. The couple has always lived here, and they are busy everyday tending their vegetable garden, orchard, and two goats. Marguerite makes great goat cheese with the milk of these two goats. When I happen to be nearby, I can't help but make a detour, say hello, and buy a couple of cheeses, a grey and a white. What a rare privilege this is...
The goats' place (below) is the shed partly carved into the rock of the hill. Everyday Marguerite takes them to a fenced meadow, walking them along paths where they feed on fresh grass. The small cheese production is occasionally interrupted in spring, when baby goats are born.
When I buy cheese from Marguerite, I enjoy placing my hands on a product, which miraculously escaped the regulatory follies of European lawmakers. These smart, bacteria-obsessed individuals have forced every cheese maker to build sanitized rooms with white tiled walls and other costly institutional gadgets. I am not sure they understand that cheese is nothing more than trillions of bacteria, mysteriously tamed into a civilized delicacy.
Marguerite usually has whites and greys. The fresh, white ones, are firm, fat, and have the tactile sensation of Saint Florentin cheese. But the taste is definitely goat cheese. The grey ones are also fresh, but they are riper than the whites, and have received a charcoal coating. This is not only nice for the colour and contrast with the white inside, but the coating encourages the mould in its cheese-making job. These grey cheeses have a typical firm-but-soft texture that you find in fine, fresh goat cheese.
Keeping with the local theme, I chose a Loire Valley wine, to pair with the cheeses: Hubert Sinson Valencay 2002. The wine estate is located in Meusnes, near the Cher river . Hubert Sinson does not use barriques to mature his wines, and, as result, they give back fully what the grapes take from the soil (here, the famous soil, "Pierre à Fusil"). The grape assemblage is 80% Sauvignon Blanc and 20% Chardonnay. The crisp and dry Sauvignon Blanc is a best friend to goat cheese. Chardonnay adds roundness and length. Plus, it will help the wine age well.
I usually eat the white goat cheese with sugar (so no wine with). What a great taste! Sugar is quite hard to mix into the cheese, due to its firmness. If you are a non-sugar type, try it with parsley on a thin slice of bread, alongside crunchy new onions. That's the way many people like goat cheese around here. Wine pairs well with this combination. We usually eat the grey goat cheese by itself and sip wine, which makes for a wonderful match. I can tell you that even though these artisanal cheeses are oversized compared to those you find in the stores, they don't last very long once they reach our home...
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