A Successful Matchmaker
John Winterman marries wine and cheese
Just about everyone talks about wine and cheese as a perfect combination, but I am not that keen on the match, particularly in restaurants. The biggest problem is that it usually comes at the end of the meal, and by that time, I have already probably eaten or drunk too much to enjoy a course of cheese.
It doesn't help the situation that pairing the right wine with the right cheese is no easy task, and the cheese selection in most restaurants, except for really high-end and expensive ones, is weak at best—especially in the United States. Few servers or sommeliers seem to know how to match them properly.
Nonetheless, one restaurant where I always try to save room for cheese is Gary Danko in San Francisco. At Danko, cheese is a priority, given the same kind of attention paid to its Wine Spectator Grand Award—winning wine list of more than 1,500 selections.
"We get cheese in every week," Gary Danko, the owner and chef of the restaurant, told me during a visit late last year. Many of his customers simply come to the bar and have a plate of cheese ($15) with a glass of wine. "It is really important."
At that time, John Winterman was Danko's cheese guy. (After spending several years at the restaurant, Winterman, 34, recently moved to Restaurant Daniel in New York.) He takes pride in the product, studies it extensively and passes his knowledge on to his staff and to his customers. He's always e-mailing his colleagues with cheese updates, whether he's found a new country cheese from Portugal or a goat cheese from Sonoma County.
"I always had enthusiasm for cheese," said Winterman. "I still remember the first great cheese I experienced. It was a fresh Brillat-Savarin at the Ritz-Carlton in Chicago. It was amazing."
I am not a cheese zealot (maybe it was all the grilled cheese sandwiches my mother served me as a boy!), but Winterman's enthusiasm is catching. And the cheese selection at Danko is irresistible. It usually includes two dozen or so cheeses from six or seven countries, from aged Parmigano Reggiano to goat's cheese from Petaluma to creamy cheeses from small farms in France's Loire Valley. He also sources a lot of cheese from England—Neal's Yard in London and the Fine Cheese Company in Bath in particular.
All the cheeses I had on my last visit to Danko were tasty, even fun—he even had a weird chocolate cheese.
Winterman tends to like sweet wines with cheese, such as the Loire's Coteaux de Layon or even Sauternes. He says that big tannic reds don't work with cheese because the acidity and flavor of the fromage conflict with the tannins in the wine. But the selection he made for me went well with a glass of California Pinot Noir. (He also prefers eating cheese without bread or crackers.)
If more restaurants served cheese as well as Gary Danko, we would all be eating more of it—regardless of the cholesterol or calories. Wine and cheese is always spoken about as a perfect marriage, but we need more matchmakers like Winterman to better understand the relationship.
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Gary Danko
800 N. Point St.
San Francisco, Calif.
Telephone (415) 749-2060
Fax (415) 775-1805
