How to host a wine and cheese party

A cheese party
Throw a cheese-tasting or cheese-and-wine-tasting party. Experiment and have fun while indulging and educating your guests in the superb art of our dairy producers.

Choose a range of Canadian cheeses and wines and discover — along with your guests — your own favourite matches. Lay a table with eight to 12 cheeses, at least three different wines, bread, crackers and fruit accompaniments, and perhaps a bowl of olives or some nuts in the shell for guests to crack.

For a more formal tasting with real cheese lovers, make individual tasting plates and serve two or three courses of cheese with selected wines and accompaniments; for instance, you could start with a selection of cow's and goat's milk soft and semisoft cheeses, strawberries or peach slices and a baguette with a dry white or light-bodied red wine. Follow with an interesting array of aged firm and hard cheeses, dried figs and apricots, and hearty rye bread, accompanied by a full-bodied red wine. Then serve a plate of blue cheeses, pear slices, walnut bread and a glass of port. Finish with a dessert of Medjool dates accompanied by a fresh cheese, such as mascarpone.

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