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Ever picked up a cheese with a sticky orange rind and a rather powerful aroma? Chances are, it has been washed. Washed-rind cheeses are some of the most distinctive cheeses on the counter. Their rinds can range from pale gold to deep orange, their aroma can be surprisingly intense, and yet the cheese underneath can be far gentler than the smell suggests. So why are they washed in the first place? …

                    Making a cheese is only the beginning. Once the curds have been formed, drained, salted and shaped, the cheese enters a stage that can be just as important as the cheesemaking itself: affinage. Affinage is the French term used for the ageing or maturation of cheese. It is the period during which a young cheese develops its fina …

Sweet Wine Isn't Just for Dessert — It's One of the Best Cheese Pairings You're Not Using Sweet wine has an image problem. For a lot of drinkers, it's a once-a-year bottle that comes out with a pavlova, Christmas pudding, or occasional dinner parties and otherwise stays untouched. That's a shame — because sweet wine might be the single most underused tool in cheese pairing. Where the …

Why Your Blue Cheese Wants Sweetness, Not a Big Red If there's one pairing instinct that seems almost universal, it's this: blue cheese is intense, so it must need an equally intense red wine to match it. It feels logical. It's also one of the most reliably wrong pairings you can make. Where the myth comes from Blue cheese is bold — sharp, salty, pungent, sometimes downright aggressive in fl …