Wine & Cheese, What a Pairing!

I recently took a wine & cheese class through UNLV Continuing Education, Wine & Cheese of Italy & Spain. To start this off, I’m not a big red wine drinker, and I thought to myself “what have you gotten yourself into?” But I love cheese, all kinds of cheese, from soft to stinky. I’ve been to classes before where Chef Les Kincaid is the instructor. He is very generous with his portions, so I knew I would get my fill of cheese and wine.

This two-week course was held at Total Wine & More in Summerlin, with the first week focused on French wines & cheese and the second week on the Spanish ones. Chef Kincaid brought four wines and four cheeses each week. He kept the price point on the wines at $7-$12. Surprisingly they were all good, although I was fondest of the French Muscat we had. I could go on about the cheeses for hours (but I won’t). We tried everything from a French Brie by Mon Pere to a 12-month aged Manchego by El Trigal. My favorite of all was a French goat cheese that had three distinct flavors as you bit into the rind, outer edge and center cut of the cheese. The name of that one is Bucherondin by Serva Bella.

Chef Kincaid is very knowledgeable about winemaking and speaks extensively about how the landscape and weather affect the grapes along with why cheeses and wines from the same region complement each other so well. He talks about the proper temperature both red and white wines should be served at and that all cheeses should be served at room temperature. With the attention to detail that Chef Kincaid provides, I definitely got my money’s worth out of this class.

Here is the link to Chef Kincaid's upcoming classes with UNLV Continuing Education.


Post by April Reckling