Orange You Glad?

This week, cheesemonger extraordinaire, Erin, explores a better-than Brie bloomy rind cheese from just over the border in Vermont and pairs its creamy, savory paste with a vivacious skin-contact wine from Austria! Commence the happy-food dancing!

Vermont Farmstead  Co. Lillé

This week we’re heading North to the cheese mecca that is the state of Vermont.  Specifically, we’re talking about Vermont Farmstead Cheese Company’s Lillé, a be

tter-than-brie style cheese with inspo drawn from the north of France. This special cheese is aged in its very own room and turned weekly to ensure that its delicate rind develops evenly with a soft bloomy texture. Lillé is decadent and delicious, with a pasty core and a creamy body that features some great earth and mushroom notes when ripe.  Its edible rind gives a salty bite to balance the delicate nutty butteriness of the paste.  We have a lot of cool complex cheeses in our collection, but sometimes it’s nice to get back to basics and VFCC’s Lillé is just that; a delightful good soft cheese. The variation in paste texture depending on ripeness makes it a little more fun than your typical brie and its clean, bright flavors make it an all-around crowd pleaser.  Be sure to let this little morsel come up to room temp before slathering it on any sort of bread/cracker/cheese vehicle you can imagine.  

Meinklang Mulatschak 

For our classic, creamy, ten out of ten would eat every time Lillé we’re pairing with a fun, funky, Austro-Hungarian orange wine, the Meinklang Mulatschak. Definitely one of our favorite farms in the biodynamic/naturals realm, we have five (5!) Meinklang wines in our current collection.  The family-run Meinklang farm sits directly on the Austria-Hungary border and practice Polyculture. The farm is home to ancient grains, vegetables, fruit orchards, & bee hives as well as grape vines of course. The farm is also famously known for their herds of cows which contribute essential fertilizer to their grape vines.   This pretty little orange number is a blend of Traminer, Pinot Gris, and Welschriesling; the grapes all given about a week of maceration on their skins. This skin contact is not only what gives orange wines their color, but also gives them a little more oomph and ability to stand up to a wider variety of foods. The Mulatschak goes through spontaneous fermentation in stainless steel with no filtering or fining, meaning it’s allowed to more or less just do its thing. We love that.  This bottle’s soft yeastiness and natural hazy apricot notes make it a great complement to the Lillé. Super florals with grapefruit citrus aromas and peachy minerality are the perfect gentle opposition to Lille’s high fat creamy body.  As the Mulatschak label says, “Cows are dancing, bulls are jumping, the lush pastures inhaling life,  that’s Mulatschak, cheerful celebrations, joyful being.” This pairing may induce happy-food dancing.  Go ahead, we’re right there with you.