French vs. British Cheeses at Cheese Please, Tampa, FL

Cheese Please tasting room

In order to celebrate National Cheese Day, we found an event at a local venue that pairs WineAndCheese. This was our first time visiting Cheese Please and we wondered how we had never come across this place before? We found out that they opened just after we left FL so that explains it. They offer wine tastings on Thursday nights and cheese tastings on Friday and Saturday nights. What a perfect place for those of us into wine and/or cheese. The owners Michael and Carlos were so much fun to hang out with. They say Cheese Please offers Cheese with a Side of Men. When we saw the scrolling slideshow of the male models across the room, we knew it was be a fun evening.

Gavi and Morbier

Rosa dell Olmo Gavi and Morbier

We chose this weeks WineAndCheeseFriday wine by a recommendation from Li at The Wining Hour. I asked her one day during #WiningHourChat on Twitter, “What Italian wine I should try?" and she suggested Gavi. I was so excited to find it during my last trip to Trader Joe’s. She told me it was a dry white wine that she liked but I didn’t really remember much else, so it kind of left our cheese options open.

Cà del Vént Cellatica Superiore 2008 and Tomme Crayeuse

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It’s hard to believe it’s been over a month since Neil and I did a WineAndCheese pairing together! The wine we’ll be tasting this week is the final wine from our Sommly.io order at the end of 2015. Many of the wines we ordered had an earthy/slate flavor profile to them so we thought this one might too. This past weekend we were pleasantly surprised to end up at a gourmet food shop, Locale Market, http://www.localegourmetmarket.com, and figured we might as well pick up some cheese while we were there. It was so much fun being in the presence of all that cheese! Neil and I identified the ones we’ve tried and the handful of others we had not. The main quality we were looking for was "out of the ordinary." When we smelled the tomme crayeuse, we thought of a moldy basement and it looked pretty haggard also. It was exactly what we wanted. So without further ado, the pairing of Cà del Vént and Tomme Crayeuse.

Cheese Plus Intimate and Exclusive Tasting Friday

Cheese Plus Intimate and Exclusive Tasting Friday 1

When we attended the Cheese Plus tasting during The Fancy Food show weekend, last year, we had such a wonderful time! We learned about cheeses from all over the world and made some great connections. We knew the event was coming soon so we marked our calendars once we received this year’s invite from Cheese Plus, http://cheeseplus.com. Due to our schedules, Neil and I planned to attend on different days. I will be writing about Friday and he will cover Saturday’s vendors.