Wines & Cheeses with Liz Wheadon

Our monthly Channel Wines and Cheeses columnist is Liz Wheadon, General Manager of Glengarry Wines. Liz is also a passionate foodie. Weekends are often spent first planning the event and then entertaining friends and family with magnificent food and wine experiences.

The New Spain

Palacios Remondo is located in the village of Alfaro in the Rioja region of Spain. Established in 1945, it’s only recently that things have changed for the better at Palacios Remondo. A family company, Alvaro Palacios, left his family company in Alfaro to work at various wineries abroad, including France – working at the famous Bordeaux winery Chateau Petrus. Alvaro then returned to Palacios Remondo and took over his family winery. He brought back with him, new wine making techniques that saw his family winery very quickly rise to be among the top producers in Rioja.
The Rioja wine region in Spain is divided into three sections;
Rioja Alta – to the left of the river, there are 20,500 ha of vines planted in this area, the wines from this part of Rioja are suited for the cellar.
Rioja Alvasa – to the right of the river, 11,500 ha of vines are planted, wines in this area are both young wines and wines for the cellar
Rioja Baja – with 18,000 ha of vines planted, Rioja Baja is about an hour from the other two parts of the Rioja – in this area, great whites as well as exceptional reds are produced.
Palacios Remondo is situated in Rioja Baja. When you visit a winery as an importer, the way they organize the visit always tells you a lot about the winery, whether they take you to the vines, the public relations centre or to see the amount of money they have tied up in oak. When I arrived at Palacios Remondo, it had been raining for a few days; this did not deter the team at all from taking me to see the vineyards. We drove up a tiny clay track into the hills. We spent most of the morning in the vineyards – the attention to detail and quality they are getting in the vineyards is stunning – when you taste the wines you will see that starting with top quality grapes is one of the most important things in wine making.
The entire range is well worth trying, if I had to pick a favorite I’d have to be La Montesa – a blend of 40% Tempranillo, 45% Grenache and 5% Mazuelo. It’s a soft fruity red wine that is excellent with food; in fact the first time I tried it was at Jamie Oliver’s Fifteen restaurant in Melbourne.

Unpasteurised Cheese – What Does It Mean?

Didas stores are now stocking a range of unpasteurised cheeses – so what’s it all about.
The process of Pasteurization was invented by Louis Pasteur in the middle of the 19th Century and is the process of heating liquids in order to reduce the level of bacteria and other organisms that may be present. The use of Pasteurization in cheese making is where the milk is heated for a short time to a high temperature, usually about 161.5 degrees for at least 15 seconds. The process essentially destroys any bacteria in the milk and leaves it ‘clean’. The process of Pasteurization is used in New Zealand cheese making.
Up until recently only a handful of hard cheese and then a few years back Roquefort were allowed to be imported into New Zealand Unpasteurised. We were not alone in this, in the States; you can still not bring in unpasteurised cheeses that are younger than 60 days, essentially limiting the importation to harder aged cheeses. However the process of making cheese without Pasteurisation – using raw milk has been around for thousands of years in Europe and it’s uncommon in France to find cheese that is pasteurised.
Then comes the discussion on taste, all this technical information is fine, but is there a difference in the taste between a Pasteurised and Unpasteurised cheese? Simply put, Yes. There’s a remarkable difference. When I return from travel to Europe and first taste European cheeses then in New Zealand, I often sit there and count the days till when I’ll next be in Europe. Memories of the wonderful cheeses in France came flooding back recently when we had the opportunity to taste a number of cheeses being imported into New Zealand from France without pasteurization. You’ll find below the details of a few of the cheeses that we are stocking in Didas, you’ll note in store they are all marked as Unpasteurised, as there are some people that should avoid these including pregnant women and babies.
Brie de Meaux AOC
The king of French Brie, Brie de Meaux has been awarded the AOC status since 1980, it’s a white rind cheese from the Brie region and the town of Meaux, it has a wonderful earthy mushroom taste and when ripe melts deliciously over the plate.
Valencay Anjouin AOC
A classic goats milk cheese from the Loire Valley, it is made in the form of a pyramid and rubbed in ash. A classic cheese to have with Sauvignon Blanc.
Camembert Bocage

This is an excellent example of Camembert, it’s a beautiful small white rinsed round, the centre is creamy yellow and not overly strong. Tasting this alongside the Brie de Meaux shows the true difference of these two styles of cheese.

If you’re interested in tasting the difference between Pasteurized and unpasteurized, we are stocking both options in two of these cheeses
(but personally, I’d just purchase the
unpasteurized version).