Whenever someone joins Wine & Drama, I ask them a very important question:

What’s in your cheese drawer?

I’ve been collecting the answers for quite a while now.

And I have learned things.

First, you all eat an astonishing amount of Parmesan.

Second, sharp cheddar appears to be less of a cheese and more of an emergency preparedness measure.

And third, some of you are doing things with cheese that would make a French cheesemonger need to sit down.

Naturally, those are the answers I enjoy most. 🤣

So after peeking into enough of your refrigerators, I decided it was time for the completely unofficial Wine & Drama Cheese Drawer Report.

Here’s what you’re eating, what I’d drink with it, and some of the more unhinged combinations you’ve confessed to along the way.

The Five Cheeses That Apparently Run Your Refrigerators

1. Sharp and Aged Cheddar

Cabot. Tillamook. Sharp white cheddar. Aged cheddar.

You people are committed.

And rightly so. Cheddar is the black dress of the cheese drawer. Sandwich? Cheddar. Crackers? Cheddar. Apple? Cheddar. Standing in front of the refrigerator at 10:37 p.m. slicing pieces directly off the block?

I know nothing about that.

What I’d pour: Try a Rioja or Cabernet Franc with a mature cheddar. And don’t overlook sparkling wine. The acidity and bubbles are glorious against a rich, salty cheese.

2. Parmigiano Reggiano

This one came up again and again, sometimes alongside Asiago and various unnamed blocks kept around specifically for grating.

I approve of this behavior.

A proper chunk of Parmigiano Reggiano isn’t merely something to grate over pasta. Break off a craggy little piece, pour yourself some wine and eat the damn thing.

What I’d pour: Sangiovese or Chianti Classico is the obvious Italian marriage, but I also love bubbles here. Lambrusco would be particularly fun.

3. Gouda

Regular Gouda.

Smoked Gouda.

1,000 day aged Gouda.

And then one of you casually mentioned Gouda with bacon, as though this were perfectly ordinary information to drop into my inbox and then continue with your day.

What I’d pour: Rioja or Syrah with aged or smoked Gouda. If the smoke is particularly assertive, I’d also try an off-dry Riesling. Sweet, salty and smoky tends to make very good trouble.

4. Provolone

Both sliced provolone and harder cheeses in the provolone family kept showing up.

It’s the dependable cheese drawer resident nobody makes a fuss about until you realize you’re putting it on everything.

What I’d pour: Montepulciano d’Abruzzo or Sangiovese, particularly with a more flavorful aged provolone.

5. Brie

Brie appeared in perfectly respectable circumstances.

It will not remain respectable for long.

What I’d pour: Champagne, Crémant or another dry sparkling wine. Chablis works beautifully, and Pinot Noir is lovely if you want red.

But before we leave Brie, I need to confess something.

One of My Favorite Pairings: Brie and Guava Jam

Forget the fig jam for a minute.

Put guava jam on Brie.

Creamy, buttery Brie with that intensely fruity, slightly tropical sweetness of guava is ridiculously good.

Add something crisp, pour sparkling wine, and suddenly you’ve created a dessert course while barely exerting yourself.

This is exactly the amount of effort I like from food.

And speaking of combinations that sound questionable until you eat them…

The Most Interesting Things Hiding in Your Cheese Drawers

Someone keeps morel and leek cheese.

Earthy mushroom, sweet leek and cheese?

I need it.

Then things got considerably more interesting.

Someone has Buzzed-Bean Cheddar, Espresso Martini. A firm, tangy cheddar flavored like an espresso martini.

Cheese and coffee have apparently been conspiring behind my back for years, which makes my own coffee-and-cheese story later in this article feel considerably less unhinged.

And then there’s Craft Beer Cheddar, Imperial Stout, described simply as “beery yumminess.”

I appreciate both the cheese and the highly technical tasting note.

Imperial stout and cheddar actually sound like they belong together: rich, malty, roasty flavors against sharp, salty cheese. This is one I’d happily put on a board with something smoky and a good mustard.

Another reader considers Cooper Sharp her essential sandwich cheese and buys it from her local farmers market.

Someone else keeps pub cheese around specifically for cheese, crackers and fruit lunches.

And one reader keeps sharp cheddar cheese for her kitty cat.  

Respect.

Which brings us neatly to the next category.

Because apparently some of you have also abandoned any pretense that cheese needs to be consumed according to civilized convention.

I couldn’t be prouder.

The Most Unhinged Cheese Pairings

Aged Cheddar + Corn Chips + Red Wine

This confession arrived with an explicit refusal to apologize.

None was requested.

In fact, I support it.

Sharp, salty cheddar. Salty, crunchy corn chips. Fruity red wine.

On paper, this sounds like something you assemble when you’ve come home exhausted and refuse to cook.

In reality?

I’d eat it.

Brie + Vanilla Wafers + Prosecco

This was casually suggested as dessert.

My initial reaction was approximately:

Excuse me?

My second reaction was:

Wait.

Because think about it.

Buttery Brie. Sweet vanilla cookie. Crisp, fizzy Prosecco.

This could either be appalling or magnificent.

And those are precisely the experiments Wine & Drama was created to investigate.

The Paper Plate Dinner

This one might actually be my favorite.

Cheese.

Whatever crackers, bread or other carb happens to exist.

Maybe a few grapes.

A bottle of Portuguese, New Zealand or California wine that cost $4.99 at Grocery Outlet and turned out to be delicious.

Put the cheese on a paper plate.

Sit down.

Dinner.

I love this.

Because somewhere along the way, wine and cheese became another bloody thing we’re supposed to perform correctly.

You need the enormous wooden board.

Three cheeses of varying textures.

Artfully scattered Marcona almonds.

A tiny pot of honey.

Figs positioned as though Annie Leibovitz is arriving to photograph them.

No.

Sometimes you’re tired.

Sometimes the cheese goes on the paper plate.

Open the wine.

But Can I Beat All of You?

My strangest cheese experience started when I was little.

When my brother and I were little, an older Spanish couple who lived nearby looked after us during school holidays while my parents worked. They were more than babysitters. They became another set of grandparents to us. It takes a village, and they were part of ours. 

And I remember watching Mrs. Margie do something that absolutely horrified me.

She would take a chunk of cheese…

and put it in her coffee.

Not alongside the coffee.

IN. THE. COFFEE.

She’d let it sit there in the hot coffee until it became warm and soft.

Then she’d drink the coffee.

And when she reached the bottom, she’d fish out that gloriously melted chunk of cheese and eat it with absolute delight.

As a child, I was simultaneously disgusted and fascinated.

Which, in retrospect, describes quite a lot of my relationship with food.

She was also the woman who gave my brother and me coffee milk.

She’d put milk into her nice porcelain coffee cups, add a bit of espresso and give it to us.

We thought this was magnificent.

My lifelong coffee addiction can probably be traced directly to this woman, so thank you for that.

But the cheese?

I didn’t try it.

For years.

Decades, actually.

Years later I discovered that café con queso is a tradition in Colombia, where mild fresh cheeses such as queso campesino are dropped into hot coffee, allowed to soften, and eaten from the bottom of the cup.

And then about a year ago, I remembered it again.

So I finally put cheese in my coffee.

I still can’t remember exactly which cheese I used, and I’m not going to invent one now for the sake of a prettier story.

But I remember the important part.

It was fucking delicious.

The hot coffee softened the cheese. The salty, creamy richness against the dark bitterness of the coffee suddenly made perfect sense.

Little-me would have been appalled.

Adult-me wanted another piece.

And it reminded me of something I’ve learned repeatedly about food and wine:

Some combinations sound completely wrong until you stop being precious and taste them.

Consider This Your License to Enjoy

One reader wrote something to me that I’ve been thinking about ever since.

She described coming home after work, putting whatever cheese and crackers or bread she had onto a paper plate, opening an inexpensive bottle of wine and calling it dinner.

She said Wine & Drama had given her a “License to Enjoy.”

I love that.

Because that’s exactly what I want this little place on the interwebs to be.

There are rules worth learning. Knowing why Brie works beautifully with Champagne or why an aged cheddar can stand up to a substantial Zinfandel makes food and wine more interesting.

But the rules are supposed to help you enjoy yourself.

They’re not supposed to become another set of manners you can fail.

If your perfect dinner tonight is Parmigiano Reggiano and Chianti in the good glasses with impossibly thin stems, wonderful.

The thinner the stem, the closer to God.

If it’s aged cheddar, corn chips and red wine on a paper plate?

Also wonderful.

And if you decide to put a chunk of cheese in your coffee because a woman I knew as a child apparently knew something the rest of us didn’t?

Please report back.

Because I’m still collecting answers.

So tell me: What’s the most unhinged thing you’ve ever eaten with cheese that turned out to be absolutely delicious?

I promise not to judge.

Much.

Cheers,
Alexandra