Video: Rioja Wine Cheese Pairings

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Cheese pairings differ if the Rioja wine is white, red or rose. Learn how to pair different Rioja wines with cheese from a professional sommelier in this free video.

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Video Transcript

Hi, I'm Mark Middlebrook, and I'm here in the Paul Marcus Wines Warehouse. And in this segment I'm going to talk about drinking Rioja with cheeses. All three of the colors. White, Rose and Red or Blanco, Rosado and Tinto, go really well with different kinds of cheese. The whites you can drink certainly with fresher, younger cheeses. The Roses with those as well as the harder cheeses. The Reds I prefer to use hard cheeses. They're not quite so good with the young goat cheeses and so on. The Rioja Region itself doesn't have a lot of famous cheeses that come from there. But there's a lot of good cheese made in various parts of Spain. Especially Northern Spain, not that far from Rioja. This is a Roncal from Navarra, which is just North of the Rioja Region. Made from sheep's milk. And this would be great with any of these, particularly I think with this red Rioja. And then there's the classic Manchego which comes from La Mancha. A little bit West and South of Rioja. But that's a really Manchego in general is a really good red wine cheese and particularly with Spanish wine such as this. It's hard to beat that combination. Cut off a hunk of this and have some Rioja and you'll be living.