When we chose to come out to Longmont, CO, we had no idea that there would be a cheese school 15 minutes from our rental. What an amazing bonus for our stay here! Neil and I have “dipped our toes” into cheesemaking but just handful of times so when we found out we could attend Cheesemaking classes, we figured it was our duty as cheeselovers. Our friend Jinnee was in town when the class occurred, so we all attended together. Jinnee said, “I love hanging out with you guys, we always eat so well!”
I was so excited when my friend Jo told me there would be a Cheese Event at the Durham East Branch library. Yay, cheese and the library! It was even free. The event was sponsored by a grocery store called the Durham Co-Op and the theme was sheep and goat cheeses. Mmm stinky barnyard cheeses, just what I prefer!
We purchased this wine and cheese in North Carolina about six weeks back but it just so happens to be a Pinot Noir pairing just after Pinot Noir Day! We found the wine from JAQK Cellars at World Market, a great place to buy wine! This is actually a brand that I first heard about in San Francisco over six years ago while job hunting. The cheese comes from Looking Glass Creamery, which we previously visited with our friend Doris. We figured the intensity of the cheese would pair nicely with a Pinot Noir, let’s see how we did!
We visited Asheville, NC, a few weeks back with our friend Doris. While we were coming up with ideas for the trip, I searched for local cheese shops. We were staying in Fletcher which is about a 20 minute drive outside of Asheville. Imagine our surprise when we found Looking Glass Creamery on that list and it was only a few minutes away from our AirBnB. We chose to go there Saturday in the early afternoon. The timing couldn’t have better as the sky opened up into thunderstorms just as we walked into the shop.
We wrapped up our trip to Chicago by having a bit of an impromptu dinner party with about six people. We had been gathering up some goodies while we made our way around town going from wine shop to wine shop and of course, cheese shops too. Now it was time to try them all out.
We heard about this wine during one of our previous trips to Costa Rica but couldn’t find it until this year. The wine is made from cashews and we really thought hard about how a wine could be made from nuts. We were telling someone about it and they said “Oh silly, the wine is made from the fruit, not the nut!” Did you know cashew was a fruit?? Just shortly after finding the wine in one of our local licorerias (liquor stores) we came across the fruit in the farmer’s market. We told the farmer that we’d be tasting the wine soon so he gave us one of the fruits to taste too.
Maria and Neil started wineandcheesefriday.com to learn more about wine in 2014. We’ve visited wineries, and creameries across the world to learn as much as we can about these two wonderful delacacies. We❤️🍷&🧀
