I recently had a yearning for something sweet and savoury after a lazy Sunday graze on something unsatisfactory and raided the cupboards and 'fridge to assemble the above feast: pickled walnuts (a first for me), buttery langue de chat biscuits, blue Stichelton cheese, and fiery grappa made from Nebbiolo grapes in Piedmont and aged and rounded out in old port casks.
Port and Stilton is a well known and successful wine and cheese match and is often accompanied by sweet digestive biscuits, and occasionally chutney. Here, the grappa provided the strong, sweet, fruity taste of port to match the salty blue cheese (a superior, unpasteurized version of Stilton), the pickled walnuts contributed to this, rather like a chutney would, and the langue de chat biscuits soaked up some of the fire, salt and sharp fruit of the mix and added their own buttery richness.
The combination was so successfully balanced I devoured the whole lot.
Food and wine matches are not set in stone but some of the established ones are worth trying even if it means reinterpreting them with the ingredients at hand.
