What are the best wine pairings for Vacherin Mont d’Or

People occasionally ask me my favourite cheese - an impossible question but Vacherin Mont d’Or is certainly up there in the top 5.

It’s made either side of the Franco/Swiss border under slightly different names* between September and March and is a washed rind cheese with a wonderfully fluid texture. It's always presented in a box with a piece of spruce bark wrapped round it. You can serve it baked when it acquires the consistency of a fondue.

Locally in the Jura it would alway be drunk with one of the local crisp white wines. Top London cheesemonger, Patricia Michelson of La Fromagerie, recommends a vin jaune or a savagnin which is certainly the classic, on-the-spot pairing and fortunately the wines more widely available than they used to be in the UK. Vintage champagne is also an option but not always what one is looking for with cheese which leaves one with aromatic whites.

'A perfectly ripe Vacherin Mont d'Or, oozing with funky fruit aromas, is an extraordinary thing to eat with a 15- to 20-year-old auslese riesling, which by then has developed a singular smoky aroma reminiscent of kerosene' Eric Asimov of the New York Times suggested a while ago. I also very much enjoyed a Vacherin recently with Laurent Miquel's Verité, a top quality viognier from the Languedoc.

Others such as Murray’s Cheese suggest pairing it with an aromatic gewurztraminer and a dry young Alsace or Austrian riesling should be an enjoyable pairing.

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