Affine au Chablis

TAST­ING NOTES FROM THE CURATOR

Lux­u­ri­ous on the mouth with its creamy, smooth pâté — sim­i­lar to its Bur­gundy cousin, the Epoiss­es, the Affine au Chablis has a rind that is light­ly gold-tinged, owing to the reg­u­lar wash­ing with Chablis wine dur­ing the three to four weeks its left to mature.

The Chablis is a local high-sta­tus white wine that adds depth to the fruity, tangy fla­vor of this full cream cheese. Its aro­ma is strong, but much milder than the stinky Epoisses.

PREPA­RA­TION AND PAIRINGS

This cheese is soft enough to eat with a spoon, and you’d be sur­prised at how many peo­ple do just that. Leave it at room tem­per­a­ture for an hour or so, and you could eas­i­ly scoop it up.

Of course, if you pre­fer to part­ner it with some­thing, crack­ers are great. The crunch the crack­ers bring con­trast excel­lent­ly with how creamy the Affine au Chablis is. You could also have it with some sweet, acidic fruit, like grape­fruit of strawberries.

For wine, this cheese is per­fect with some dry whites, like a Chardon­nay, and obvi­ous­ly, a Chablis.

BUR­GUNDY BEST

Bur­gundy is a region rich in cul­tur­al con­tri­bu­tions. There are many clas­sic French things you wouldn’t real­ize come from Burgundy.

One of the main wine-pro­duc­ing areas of France, it has a rep­u­ta­tion for excel­lent top wines, like the Chablis, and Beau­jo­lais, pro­duced in small quan­ti­ties, but supe­ri­or in qual­i­ty so the demand is always high.

Bur­gundy is also the home of Dijon mus­tard, as well as the coq au vin, beef bour­guinon, and the Epoiss­es cheese.

Storage Instructions

Cheeses (except brined ones in jars) should be stored in the crisper or the but­ter draw­er of a refrig­er­a­tor, not on the shelves them­selves. This is to help reg­u­late their tem­per­a­ture and humid­i­ty lev­els — and pre­vents the for­ma­tion of mold. Once opened, they should not be kept in their orig­i­nal pack­ag­ing. Soft cheeses with del­i­cate rinds need to breathe, so they are best placed in glass con­tain­ers lined with paper tow­els to absorb extra mois­ture. Leave the lid open a tiny bit for air to cir­cu­late and don’t for­get to write up a label with the date you first opened the pack­age. Kind­ly pay atten­tion to the best before date label when you receive your cheese. Con­sume pri­or to date indicated.