Le Comté Cheese Dégustation

I'm not from a culinarily sophisticated family. We didn't know anything about wines (my parents didn't drink which certainly didn't help). We didn't experiment with recipes from around the world (my parents idea of cooking was grilled cheeses or reheated pizza fingers). And we certainly never had any fancy French cheeses served with fresh fruit as a meal.

Thankfully, I know a bit better now. So when I walked up to the Loup Gourmand - a cheese counter at the local farmer's market - and asked for dégustation suggestions, I was more than pleasently surprised of the intensity, rich, nutty flavour of Le Comté cheese (www.comte.com).

This cheese was simply beautiful. Complex. Rich. And a great cheese to eat with a simple dégustation. All I did for supper was cut up the cheese, an apple, some chinese pears, a mango, tomatoes, prepared some grapes and garlic stuffed green olives. I also bought some fondu beef (thinly sliced beef), wrapped it around German salami and brie, and then cooked these little hot morsels in a bit of oil. Along with a Wolf Blass Shiraz Cabernet Sauvignon 2005 (which my very mediocre sommelier skills tell me there probably could have been a better wine pairing) the meal was a party of different flavours taking each other's place one after another to leave you with a very satisfied feeling of having eaten well.

Anyways, I don't know much about cheeses or wine but I do know that this meal was good. In my opinion, a dégustation is perfect for any day.