CROOME CHEESE
Searching for something in particular? Browse our best sellers!
Searching for something in particular? Browse our best sellers!
A wine and cheese night is one of those ideas that sounds simple and turns out to be brilliant. Nobody has to cook. Nobody has to follow a recipe or time three things at once. You open some bottles, lay out some cheese, and suddenly you’ve got an evening that people actually want to stay for.
The thing is, the quality of the cheese matters more than most people realise. A decent bottle of wine alongside something from the supermarket chiller? Fine. That same bottle alongside a properly made artisan cheese? Completely different experience. The wine tastes better. The cheese tastes better. The whole evening feels like more of an occasion.
We’ve helped all kinds of people put together wine and cheese nights here at Croome Cheese: friends doing a low-key Thursday thing, couples planning a proper date night in, and groups who want to turn it into a real tasting experience. Whatever yours looks like, we’re happy to help you figure out the cheese side of it.
Good news: you don’t need to be a sommelier to get this right. There are a few simple ideas that will steer you well almost every time, and once they click, the rest is just fun.
The big one is that fat and acid balance each other out. Red wine has tannins, that slightly drying sensation you get on your tongue, and the fat and salt in cheese softens them. That’s the science behind why these two things have been eaten together for so long. It’s not just tradition. It actually works.
Beyond that, a few things to keep in mind:
And if you want to tell us what’s in your wine rack, we’ll happily suggest the cheeses to match. That’s the kind of conversation we enjoy.
Opening with something crisp- a Champagne, a Chablis, a good Sauvignon Blanc- and you want a soft cheese alongside it. The acidity in the wine cuts through the richness of the cheese in a way that feels clean and bright rather than heavy. Fresh chèvre, a bloomy brie-style, a young milky round- any of these work beautifully. It’s a pairing that feels a bit special without being complicated, and it’s a lovely way to start the evening. Browse our fruit fusions collection for something on the lighter, fresher end.
Most people’s instinct when they think “wine and cheese” is a red wine and something aged, and their instincts are not wrong. A crumbly, crystalline, properly aged hard cheese alongside something full-bodied and red is genuinely one of life’s great combinations. The cheese softens the tannins in the wine, the wine lifts the nuttiness in the cheese, and the two just work together in a way that’s hard to improve on. A farmhouse cheddar with a Cabernet, something more alpine with a Pinot Noir, you can’t really go wrong. Our classics range is a good place to start.
Here’s the pairing that converts people. Not everyone comes to a wine and cheese night as a blue cheese enthusiast, but a good artisan blue alongside something sweet- a Sauternes, a port, a sticky late harvest wine- has a way of changing minds. The contrast between the salt and the sweetness is extraordinary. Don’t relegate your blue to a side note at the end of the board. Make it a moment.
If you’ve got guests who are genuinely into their cheese, a washed rind gives the evening an extra dimension. They’re the pungent, complex ones, the kind that smell alarming in the bag and taste incredible on the board. They pair well with something slightly off-dry, like an Alsatian Gewürztraminer, or even a good amber ale if you’re mixing wine and beer. They’re always the most talked-about cheese of the night, for all the right reasons.
If you want to push the evening beyond a nice spread and into actual tasting territory, it doesn’t take much more effort, just a little bit of structure. Here’s what works:
Start light and build up. Begin with your most delicate wine and most subtle cheese, then work towards the bigger, bolder stuff. If you lead with the blue and the port, nothing else gets a fair hearing.
Keep portions small for a tasting. You want people to actually taste things, not fill up on the second pairing and lose interest. Around 30–40g per cheese per person is plenty if you’re doing it properly. There’s always the main board for afterwards.
Give people something to write on. Blank cards, a shared notebook, even their phones- some people love jotting down their impressions, and it slows the evening down in the best way. The ones who think they’ll find it naff usually end up the most into it.
Water and plain crackers between each pairing. Not glamorous, but genuinely important. It resets the palate so each new combination gets a proper chance rather than being coloured by the one before.
It depends on how you’re running it, but here’s the way we tend to think about it:
Always buy a little more than you think you need. People go back for their favourite, and the worst version of this story is running out of the best cheese of the night while there’s still wine in the glass. When you order with us, we’ll talk through the numbers with you properly so that doesn’t happen.
British cheesemaking has had a quiet renaissance over the last twenty years, and the results are extraordinary. Pair a selection of British artisan cheeses, a farmhouse cheddar, a crumbly northern-style cheese, and a British blue, with English sparkling wine or a well-chosen real ale. It’s a genuinely exciting spread, and it always surprises people who didn’t know British cheese had got this good.
For the group who want to be pushed a little. Smoked varieties, things they’ve never heard of, paired with wines that might be new to them, too. It’s the kind of evening that ends with everyone talking over each other about what they liked and why, and making plans to do it again.
And sometimes you just want to open a few good bottles, put out a generous spread, and let people work it out for themselves. Not everything needs a structure. A good range of cheeses across different styles, plenty of wine, and good company- that’s an evening sorted. If this is you, we’ll help you pick a selection that covers the bases and leave you to it.
Simple is best. The cheese and the wine are the point; everything else just needs to support them without getting in the way.
Because we actually care about what we sell. Every cheese we stock is there because we think it’s genuinely worth eating, not because it’s easy to source or cheap to stock. You won’t find anything on our shelves that’s just making up the numbers.
And when you come to us, you get a proper conversation. Tell us what wines you’ve got, how many people are coming, whether your crowd are adventurous or whether you need something that’ll go down well with everyone, and we’ll help you build a selection that works. We’re not going to hand you a pre-packaged box and wish you luck. We’d rather get it right.
Whether you’ve already got the wines sorted and just need the cheese to match, or you’re starting from scratch and want someone to help you think the whole thing through, we’re here.
Get in touch with the team at Croome Cheese, tell us what you’re planning, and we’ll take it from there.
Contact us today; let’s make it a night worth remembering.
