Pinot noir pairing with cheese is about the terroir
Cheese – paired with fine French pinot noir – also helped inspire another winemaker, Liam Van Pelt, when he started working at the revered high-altitude Adelaide Hills vineyard, Ashton Hills, in 2019.
Ashton Hills had been established in the early 1980s by Stephen George. In 2015, he sold to McLaren Vale winery Wirra Wirra but continued to consult to Wirra after the sale. Van Pelt told guests at the seminar that when he started he was in awe of this silver-haired legend of the local wine industry, and nervous about working alongside him.
Ashton Hills winemaker Liam Van Pelt has also been inspired to match cheeses with fine pinot noir. Janis House Photography
“But Stephen made me feel at home,” said Liam. “He kind of ‘anointed’ me: we’d sit down at the end of the day and eat local cheese (from Section 28) and drink expensive burgundy. We’ve kept it up, too: we still drink wines that I can’t afford, but he can supply.”
Pinots for cheese
2019 Tissot En Barberon Pinot Noir [Côtes du Jura]
From a vineyard planted in limestone-rich soils 250 metres above sea level in the Côtes du Jura in eastern France and grown according to strict biodynamic principles. This is the wildest and most robust of the three pinots reviewed here, with super-seductive, thrilling hedgerow fruit aromas, intense dark berry flavours, and a deep, almost gamey minerality and sense of vitality on the tongue. This matched superbly with Beaufort, a dense, sweet, gruyère-style alpine cheese from the neighbouring Savoie region: the cheese also has a wild, heady, super-aromatic quality that melded seamlessly with the wine. $150 Imported by heartandsoil.com.au
2021 Ashton Hills Estate Pinot Noir [Adelaide Hills]
From a hillside vineyard sitting almost 600 metres above sea level, this wine is made from five clones of pinot noir. Pretty, almost ethereal red-fruit aromas, fine, floral, some hints of sweet aromatic dried herb, then a fine, silky-tannic character on the tongue. The wine…
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