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Big Cheese
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Wine and cheese specialist Daniele Raulet-Reynaud tells the difference between chalk and cheese
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Photo: V. Ganesan
Cheese and cheer Daniele Raulet-Reynaud.
Bla, bla, yuk, yuk, yuk,” exclaims Daniele Raulet-Reynaud, sommelier and French wine and European cheese specialist, on processed supermarket cheese. She adds, with a dramatic shudder, “You don’t know in the end whether you are eating plastic or cheese.”
In Chennai to promote authentic French wines and cheese, under the banner of Sopexa — the Wine and Food marketing board of France — Daniele points at a speckled blue Roquefort on a vibrant cheese board loaded with creamy wedges, aromatic wheels and colourful hunks of cheese. “Buy a block of good cheese and slice it yourself instead,” she says. And if you’re going the French way and serving wedges of cheese with wine, she adds, try small quantities of different families, like goat cheese, blue cheese and soft creamy white cheeses.
Like any French woman worth her fleur de sel, Daniele is passionate about quality. Well travelled, she understands that in a culture like ours French cheeses are alien enough to make even sophisticated hosts nervous. “We try to discover local needs and tastes,” she says, adding, “In Japan, for example, when I’m faced with a wall of unfamiliar food that I don’t know how to use, I have no idea what to buy.”
While wine appreciation has been gaining ground in India, most cheese is processed. France, on the other hand, “has been a Kingdom of Cheeses for three millenniums,” says Daniele, adding, “We don’t pretend that we are the first though. There’s also been cheese in Nepal, Greece, Central Europe and India.” The French, however, have about 1,000 different cheeses, stemming from about 360 varieties. Of the 1,000, she says about 500 are really well-known, and only 35 have qualified for the cherished AOC certification. The system was developed as a guarantee of authenticity to customer. The ubiquitious Camembert, for instance, should come only from Normandy. “You can’t get it anywhere else. The cheese depends on a particular vegetation, soil and environment. There even is a special milk coming from a special cow,” she says displaying pictures of placid brown and white camembert cows. She adds that Australia, Germany and now Japan are all making French ‘cheeses’. “One region makes Brie, Camembert, Roquefort etc there,” she exclaims, “This is impossible.” The French take product names so seriously that recently, even their celebrated designer Yves Saint-Laurent was taken to court for trying to name a perfume ‘Champagne.’
She excitedly holds out a bottle of Drappeir, carefully filling our champagne flutes, to emphasise on how ‘tres elegant’ it can be. “The bubbles should be quiet and refined,” she says, taking a respectfully awed sip.
To explore this world of wine and cheese, Daniele suggests you buy very small quantities of different types of cheeses till you discover what you like: delicately flavoured hard cheese from the Highlands, sharper goat cheese, full bodied soft cheese, or flavoursome blue cheese. And then try them with wines.
The faintly sweet, delicate Emmental and Comte, made from the milk of Highland cows and then stored as 30 to 50 kilo cheese wheels in villages for a year, go well with a red fruity wine. Sharp Saint Nectaire is transformed by dry champagne. The flavours of the full-bodied Reblochon and Crottin pair delightfully with sweet perfumed white Riesling, raisins and walnuts. Camembert works with cider, apple juice and apples. The deliciously runny, rich Epoisse Marc, washed in Beer or Brandy, and powerful Roquefort, work with a more acidic wine that cuts the fat. But you can make your own pairings too.
And, of course, everything goes with champagne. “Any food, Any time. Any occasion,” says Daniele, holding up the Drappeir, “I get a boyfriend, I drink champagne. My boyfriend goes away, I drink champagne.”
Cheese Facts
* Goat cheese comes as logs or triangles. Hard cheese is shaped like large wheels.
* For a great daily cheese board, buy small quantities and many different varieties.
* Wrap each cheeses individually and refrigerate till an hour before serving.
* Reuse original wrapping. If the cheese gets dry, wrap in a damp napkin.
* Tiny goat cheese discs are cut in two; Brie is sliced and blue cheese should be cut in wedges
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SHONALI MUTHALALY
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