Cheese Matters

Cheese Heaven & Romance in Santa Barbara

We are fortunate to have access to treasures like The Cheese Store of Beverly Hills where cheeses from all over the planet can be sampled and taken home to enjoy.  Now, Santa Barbara has one of the legends of the cheese shop world right in the heart of the city.  Kent Torrey opened a branch of his famous Cheese Shop of Carmel and boy-oh-boy are people in Santa Barbara happy.  Kent’s store is easily found near Nordstrom, in the Paseo Nuevo Shopping Center.  It’s called Cheese Shop Santa Barbara and they’ll teach you and taste you on cheeses while you pick out your selection.  I love this quote from Kent, “Instead of working with paints on canvas—we work with cheese and condiments to help customers create a beautiful and delicious cheese plate.”

Santa Barbara is so close you can drive up there in less than two hours and on less than a tank of gas.  All of my friends there go to Kent’s store and they get everything they need to have a terrific  picnic.  The Cheese Store of Santa Barbara’s tag line is so appropriate, “The Gourmand’s Mecca.”

The Cheese Store Santa Barbara has it all: gourmet foods, wines and, of course a huge cheese selection. Two hundred beauties from around the world of cheese are just waiting for you to take them on a romantic picnic.  The Cheese Store even has the rare Barely Buzzed, an American original cheese that is aged in coffee and lavender buds.

Why not bundle up and go to the beach and watch the pelicans dive into the sea, while you share some amazing cheeses with someone special.  What an amazing life that we have here in California.  Enjoy!

The Cheese Store of Santa Barbara
Paseo Nuevo Shopping Center
811 G State Street (near Nordstrom)
Santa Barbara, CA 93101
(805) 884-9463

By Barrie Lynn / The Cheese Impresario

TheCheeseImpresario.com
Cheese@bhtmag.com

Cheese Matters: Oscar Flavor & Birthday

 

Two cheese-centric adventures were in store for The Cheese Impresario. 

First: awards season in Hollywood.  I served artisanal cheeses at HAVEN, an Oscar-season celebrity-retreat marble mansion where we celebrated The Wrestler with folks from World Wrestling Entertainment.  I ran into my friend Alyssa Rapp, founder of Bottlenotes, a wine club using technology much like Netflix.  She was enjoying Joe Widmer’s Aged Brick Spread with her 2006 Cannonball Cabernet Sauvignon.  Cheese spread isn’t something you’d think of when you think artisanal cheese, but the spread was the hit of the event.  People kept coming back for more. Alyssa even has a book out in stores, Bottlenotes Guide to Wine: Around the World in 80 Sips.  

 

The second cheese adventure: my friend Adam Leemon, AKA “Adam The Wine Guy,” turned me on to the wines of Demetria Estate.  Once I tried Demetria’s 2006 Cuvee Papou, I had to visit the winery.  I packed my bags, put amazing cheeses in my cooler and hit the road. 

My tasting adventure included Demetria Estate owner John Zahoudanis, winemaker Michael Roth and assistant winemaker Brandon Sparks-Gillis.  I experienced their Rhone varietals, all grown on John’s romantic estate.  We loved Carr Valley Cheese Company’s Cave Aged Mellage with the Papou; and Demetria’s 2005 Syrah was amazing with Carr Valley’s Airco, the three-milk blend cold-smoked over hickory.  You’ll need an appointment to experience Demetria Estate’s wines at its high-in-the-hills Mediterranean winery.  (Demetria is the highest-elevation vineyard in the Santa Ynez Valley American Viticultural Area.)  You will feel like you’ve been in another country, and the wines Mike makes will send your taste buds to the moon!

www.bottlenotes.com

www.widmerscheese.com

www.demetriaestate.com

By Barri Lynn

TheCheeseImpresario.com

Cheese@bhtmag.com

Sipping With Wine Royalty

 

 

CHEESE MATTERS

 

Attending Wine Spectator’s California Wine Experience, in New York was a trip I would totally recommend.  The plethora of world-class wines to explore was mind blowing.  I was able to spend quality time with wine royalty Agustin Huneeus Jr. and Jim Sweeney, while sipping their heavenly Quintessa. And yes, I had a full plate of cheeses to enjoy with this majesty of a Napa red.  Huneeus Vintners create a collection of wines including the luscious FAUST Cabernet Sauvignon and Illumination Sauvignon Blanc.  Agustin Huneeus Sr., pioneered winemaking in the now renowned Casablanca Valley, in Chile.  It is here, and in the Colchagua Valley, where they make the accoladed Primus and Veramonte wines.  These are astounding cheese-friendly wines priced for ultimate value.  Veramonte is available at Bristol Farms.

Honey & Cheese A flavor adventure

I’ll never forget the first time I enjoyed a drizzle of honey enveloping a piece of blue cheese.  The experience was truly transcendent, transportive and transformative to the total max.  You’ve got to try this amalgamation of sweet and savory.  Those who didn’t enjoy blue cheese are now loving it and, drizzling away with all kinds of honey.  Parmesan and so many other cheeses also love a dollop of honey.

There are more than 300 varietals of honey in the United States.  They range from the sweet and light orange blossom honey to savory lavender.   The different flavors of honey are not added in, they come straight from the flowers where the bees drink their nectar.  A rare tupelo honey from Savannah Bee Company you can buy in the store, is made by bees that were sipping from the tupelo blossoms in the swamp- lands of Georgia and in Florida.

Honey is the only food that does not spoil.  Just drizzle from above and don’t pollute your honey jar with any other organic matter.  If you follow this methodology of pure enjoyment, your honey could last for more than 3,000 years, just like the honey that was recently found in the pyramids of Egypt.

Relish this flavor adventure!

By Barrie Lynn / The Cheese Empressario