The Gruyère Experience in Switzerland, Part 2
![stimulating the udders with the straw stimulating the udders with the straw](https://www.WineAndCheeseFriday.com/media/posts/341/stimulating-the-udders-with-the-straw-500x312.jpeg)
Our story left off when you had just heard that Maria was going to milk a cow that afternoon, won't you join us as The Gruyère Experience in Switzerland continues!
Our story left off when you had just heard that Maria was going to milk a cow that afternoon, won't you join us as The Gruyère Experience in Switzerland continues!
We came to Switzerland to visit Benno and Nora, friends we had met long long ago in Costa Rica. Back in 2015, she worked at a winery, and his family owned a dairy farm in the AOP region for Gruyère cheese. Then fast forward 7 years to today, and now they live on that dairy farm. Benno runs the show, caring for the cows, plowing the cornfields and potatoes. They’re full blown farmers.
We found a fellow WineAndCheese lover here in Quebradas, Costa Rica! Her name is Carol and she lives right down the road from us. Since she’s an expat, we can speak English, which makes it a little easier! We had already gotten together for wine and cheese before so I wanted to do it again as part of WineAndCheeseFriday. Also having some in-person time provided a nice break from all our Christmas video chatting.
This was our second time visiting the specialty grocery store, L'épicerie, in Ojochal. We had such good luck with wine and cheese we purchased from there a few months back that we had to plan another trip! (https://wineandcheesefriday.com/best-of-wines-and-cheeses-in-costa-rica/) As we entered we had wine and cheese on the mind. What would we find this time around? Would there be more wines from other countries that our local distributors don’t carry? And what kind of cheese would we find?
During our time in Costa Rica (much longer than we expected) we’ve been finding some really nice wines and cheeses. This trip we’ve had more purchasing options since we’ve been traveling around the country more. This has allowed us to find brands and shops that we never visited before. We’re also aware that it isn’t crucial to refrigerate cheese immediately so we’ve been fine taking the chance of driving home with it for a couple hours without thinking twice.
After trying a few bottles of Pata Negra Tempranillo, we decided to have one for an official wine and cheese pairing. We’ve tried multiple vintages and styles so we wanted to share it with all of you! The cheese we chose was from Denmark, and we pretty much jump at the chance to have blue cheese, when we can find it. We actually figured out during the pairing that the last time we’d had blue cheese was with our family during the holidays. No wonder we were craving it so much. We present to you the pairing of Pata Negra Reserva Tempranillo and Rosenburg blue cheese.