The Best Wine & Cheese Pairings For Happy Hour
There are few things more classic, awesome, and primed for Great Times than cheese and wine. Whether you’re entertaining your Flock or enjoying your own personal happy hour - some of our best moments have been made over wine and cheese.
We’re breaking down our go-to pairings for each Sea Bird Wine varietal so you know exactly what to grab when you’re snacking and sipping.
When pairing wine with cheese, or really, any food, the things that will taste the best will be things that have a little bit of similarity. If you’ve ever heard the phrase “what grows together goes together,” this applies perfectly! If you’re drinking regionally, it helps to choose cheeses that are grown geographically close, if you can. If you can’t get that in-depth, try to identify nuance in the food that may come from spices, herbs or minor ingredients. This can be things like olive, fruits, bacon, etc…then select a wine that contains similar features like herbal notes, for example.
Chardonnay
Sea Bird Chardonnay (like our 2017 Courtney's Vineyard!) tend to be medium bodied, which pair perfectly in the “medium range” of cheese. Work your way down the list depending on the vintage. Newer vintages should pair with the top of the list, and if you’re drinking the Chardonnay young, could even venture into a salty, more crumbly cheese (feta, Cotija, Halloumi) and as it develops (2015 Robert's Road, anyone?), move further down the list into more buttery and then into harder, nuttier styles with age.
Avoid anything particularly pungent with Chardonnay - which means, sorry guys but blue cheeses is off the menu.
If you're looking for a more sour style of cheese, pair with:
- Sour cream
- Ricotta
- Havarti
- Chèvre
Charodonnay also love buttery, delicate cheeses like:
- Brie
- Camembert
- Burrata
- Device de bourgogne
If you’re looking for something more on the harder, nutty style to go with your older vintage Chard, go for:
- Aged gruyere
- Comte
- Provolone
- Emmental
Pinot Noir
Hard, nutty styles of cheese are the perfect pairing with a Sea Bird Pinot Noir (looking at you, 2013 Sonoma Stage Vineyard). Our Pinot Noir style is light bodied, more of a Burgundian style that captures the essence of California terroir. As a result, choosing a cheese too creamy, salty or pungent would take over your palate.
Head for the harder, nutty style cheese including:
- Aged gruyere,
- Comte
- Provolone
- Emmental
- Smoked Mozzarella
- Scamaroza
Merlot
You at me at Merlot! Aphrodite is the newest addition to our Flock - a plush, decadent Napa Valley expression with a kiss of oak makes for the happiest of hours. When sipping, opt for nutty, hard cheese or cheeses that have more of a fruity or umami quality which could be anything from:
- Aged gruyere
- Comte
- Provolone
- Emmental
- Smoked Mozzarella
- Scamaroza
- Cheddar
- Smoked Gouda
- Muenster
- Colby
- Ossau-Iraty
Cabernet Sauvignon
Our Cabernet Sauvignon styles of wine (most notably, Poseidon or Broken Rock from Napa Valley) are full bodied, and express the boldness of California terroir with the balance that holds age incredibly well. The bigger and bolder the wine, the more it can lead the show.
When sipping a Cab, avoid anything too sour or creamy - leave the ricotta and chèvre on the table. Cheese that play with fruity, nutty or umami flavors are your go-to, including:
- Cheddar
- Smoked Gouda
- Muenster
- Colby
- Ossau-Iraty
This is officially your permission to have wine and cheese for dinner. Have a particularly favorite pairing we need to know about? Tell us over on our Instagram page and tag us while you're enjoying Great Vines to Great Times with a bottle of Sea Bird.
Choosing The Best Wine Glass
When you sip, I sip, we sip.
If you saw our latest episode of #SipWithSeaBird on our Instagram TV, we were tasting our 2014 Robert’s Road Chardonnay out of two glasses: a crystal stemmed wine glass, and a “daily drinker” stemless glass. Any way you pour it, the wine is great! But, by choosing a good quality wine glass, you are able to experience the complexity and nuance of a great wine at a higher level!
There are four “sensations” that you experience when tasting wine, as the glass makers at Reidel, The Wine Glass Company, will tell you:
- The Bouquet – we’re not talking flowers here! Each wine varietal has its own unique characteristics that can be experienced in the wine’s aroma
- The Texture – often called the “mouthfeel” this describes the wine’s first sips which you’ll often see referred to as watery, creamy, silky, soft, etc….
- The Flavor – The part we’re all here for, right?! This is the full profile of the wine that brings together fruit, minerality and acidity in the perfect balance to deliver to your tastebuds.
- The Finish – The
Using a high quality wine glass will enhance and show off all these amazing profiles in your wine.
Want to do a little more research? Here’s some of our other go-to wine glass brands that we know and love, all for different reasons!
RIEDEL – one of the most classic wine glass brands, RIEDEL shapes each glass specific to its varietal to show off the complex role played by glassware and wine. Easy to find, you can pick up a set at places like Williams-Sonoma, Crate & Barrel and even Target!
Zalto Denk’Art Collection makes what they refer to as “The Universal Glass” that you can experience reds and wines in! This is ideal if you’re just dipping your nose into the wine world, and want to start with a great glass that you can try many new wines in! Fun fact: the Zalto team claims to have designed the glass in accordance to the earth’s tilted angles (that’s 24 degrees, 48 degrees and 72 degrees).
Schott Zwiesel – European made, these wine glasses are practical in every sense, and perfect to stock up on since they are affordable and easy to find in lots of different varieties. Even better, they are also dishwasher safe and resistant to breakage.
Gabriel Glass – Kinda like all the Musketeers rolled into one, the Gabriel Glass is known as the “one for all” wine glass. We’re here for it!
No matter what you’re sipping out of, we hope you’re enjoying a glass of Sea Bird Wines with your nearest and dearest. Cheers!