Cheese, Terroir and Pairings: Why We Choose Them This Way at La Bidule

I love cheese because it can be simple and complex at the same time. And because, when it meets the right wine, it can still surprise me in a way that very few foods can.

I have tried a lot of food and wine pairings over the years.

During my AIS sommelier training, and particularly during the third level devoted to food and wine pairing, I had the chance to taste countless combinations.

Some were correct.

Some were interesting.

Others were easily forgotten.

But there is one category that continues to give me more satisfaction than almost any other:

cheese.

Not because cheese is easy to pair.

Quite the opposite.

A fresh, delicate cheese and a mature Strachitunt may both be called “cheese”, but from a sensory point of view they can feel like two entirely different worlds.

And that is exactly what I enjoy about it.

Something Simple That Can Become Incredibly Complex

Milk, rennet, salt and time.

It sounds almost elementary.

Then you start tasting cheese properly and discover just how much its texture, aroma, saltiness, sweetness, acidity and persistence can change.

You begin to find milky, herbal, spicy, toasted and sometimes almost caramel-like notes.

And, above all, you discover that two wheels of the same cheese do not necessarily taste exactly alike.

That is one of the reasons why, at La Bidule, we chose to work exclusively with raw-milk cheeses.

Raw milk carries something that fascinates us in wine too: the ability to express where it comes from.

The season changes.

The grasses and flowers the animals eat change.

The environment changes.

And the cheese changes with them.

A cheese we receive today may have slightly different nuances from the one we received a few weeks ago.

We do not see that as a flaw.

It is precisely what we are looking for.

Because behind that natural variation there has to be a skilled cheesemaker capable of taking a living raw material and helping it reach its best expression.

For us, the parallel with wine is inevitable.

Why We Chose to Stay in Bergamo

When we began building the food selection at La Bidule, one decision was clear from the start: we wanted our suppliers to be from the Bergamo area.

Not because local is automatically better.

But because it would have seemed strange to live in an area with such an extraordinary cheesemaking tradition and immediately start looking elsewhere.

The province of Bergamo has more PDO cheeses that can be produced within its territory than any other Italian province: nine.

But numbers only tell part of the story.

What really matters to us are the people who continue to work exceptionally well, preserve traditions worth keeping and manage to make those traditions visible — and tasteable — in their products.

For cheese, we found two producers that feel particularly close to the way we think:

La Camosciata, run by Andrea Oberti, and Cooperativa Agricola Sant’Antonio in Val Taleggio.

Two very different stories.

And perhaps that is exactly why they complement each other so well.

La Camosciata: When the Person Came Before the Cheese

Erica discovered La Camosciata almost by chance.

She had seen some videos featuring Andrea Oberti on social media and realised that he had attended the same Bergamo Sviluppo programme she had taken while preparing to start a business.

Later, she watched him take part in a round-table discussion with other entrepreneurs, talking about his own journey.

So our curiosity about the person actually came before the tasting.

Then we tried the cheeses.

And there was not much left to decide.

From La Camosciata we regularly buy their bloomy-rind goat’s cheese log and their aged goat’s milk cheese.

The bloomy-rind log, in particular, represents one side of our selection perfectly: creamy, melting, approachable and extremely enjoyable, but far from ordinary.

It is one of the two cheeses that, to me, feel most like La Bidule.

The other sits almost at the opposite end of the spectrum.

Strachitunt: Rare, Ancient and Stubborn

Strachitunt PDO is one of those products that reminds us why we opened La Bidule in the first place.

It is made using an ancient cheesemaking technique and is often described as one of the ancestors of Gorgonzola.

Its production area is extremely small, and very few producers continue to make it.

Cooperativa Agricola Sant’Antonio follows the process from the milk supplied by its members through cheesemaking and ageing.

That matters to us.

We like the idea that someone still chooses to preserve something this distinctive instead of taking an easier route.

Perhaps we recognise something of ourselves in that.

We left secure jobs to try to build something around the things we genuinely care about.

The two situations are obviously very different.

But I understand the idea of choosing the less comfortable road because you believe it is worth taking.

Strachitunt is intense, slightly pungent and complex.

If La Camosciata’s goat cheese log were the equivalent of a balanced, immediately enjoyable wine, Strachitunt would be an evolved bottle that asks for a little more time.

A bit like two wines we currently serve by the glass: an Erbaluce di Caluso from Crosio on one side, and Lozza’s 2015 Bonarda Riserva on the other.

Not better or worse.

Simply different experiences.

Sant’Antonio: A Much Longer Search

Our route to Cooperativa Sant’Antonio was completely different.

We had been looking for a Bergamo producer of cow’s milk cheeses for quite some time.

We tasted several producers, but none completely convinced us.

Meanwhile, through AIS pairing evenings led in part by an ONAF Master Cheese Taster, we had started learning much more about cheese.

And we had reached one firm conclusion:

we wanted to work only with raw milk.

So we bought a small selection from Sant’Antonio and tasted through it.

We fell for the cheeses almost immediately.

Today we regularly buy Taleggio, aged Branzi, Magrera and Strachitunt.

Other cheeses occasionally appear too, including cheeses from Val Taleggio and very mature Branzi.

Magrera: The One That Can Easily Be Overlooked

Among them, there is one cheese that I think deserves more attention than it usually gets: Magrera.

It does not have the complexity of Strachitunt, and perhaps that makes it less immediately striking.

To me, some aspects are reminiscent of pecorino.

It has a lovely sweetness, milky and gently caramelised aromas, and a slightly granular texture.

It is versatile, enjoyable and very interesting.

And it reminds me of something that is equally true of wine:

greater complexity does not automatically mean greater quality.

Sometimes precision, balance and pure drinking — or eating — pleasure are exactly what you are looking for.

Why Cheese Pairings Can Become Something Special

Perhaps it is this enormous diversity that makes me enjoy pairing cheese and wine so much.

When you find the right combination, something can happen that I experience less often with other foods.

You are no longer simply tasting “a good cheese” alongside “a good wine”.

The two begin to change each other.

A milky note may suddenly become clearer.

A hazelnut character you had barely noticed may emerge.

Or you may have an especially creamy, rich cheese and a fine sparkling wine that accompanies it while simultaneously leaving your palate beautifully clean.

I still remember an AIS evening when we paired an evolved Champagne with Brillat-Savarin.

That was one of the moments when I truly understood what people mean when they say that a pairing can create something new.

The same thing can happen with a botrytised sweet wine — Sauternes or Tokaji, for example — alongside a great blue cheese.

When everything falls into place, the result is not simply the sum of its parts.

And that is probably what I keep looking for.

Cheese at La Bidule

At La Bidule, cheese can arrive at the table in several different ways.

We have a dedicated cheese board, featuring all the varieties available at that moment.

Finding a single wine that pairs perfectly with every cheese on the board is virtually impossible.

But trying is part of the fun.

That is why we normally let guests choose the wine they would like to drink and then discover together what happens.

A smaller selection also appears on our mixed boards and aperitivo boards.

And some cheeses become part of our dishes.

Our pinsa called “Matrimonio perfetto” — “The Perfect Marriage” — for example, combines melted Taleggio with honey.

With that, we might suggest a mature, structured white wine or a red with enough body to stand beside it.

Once again, there is no single answer.

And that is precisely what makes pairing interesting.

When Someone Comes Back for the Cheese

One of the nicest confirmations of our choices came from a young woman who first visited La Bidule with her mother.

She ordered our cheese board.

Then she came back.

With her boyfriend.

Then again with her mother.

And every time, the cheese board returned to the table.

She told us she had never tasted a cheese board like ours anywhere else.

Next week she will also join one of our pairing evenings.

That means a great deal to us.

Because it means that, somewhere behind a slice of cheese, she tasted everything we had been looking for before that cheese ever reached the board.

A producer.

A place.

A choice.

What “Local” Means to Us

We do not believe a product is better simply because it comes from nearby.

That would be too easy.

We choose local producers when we find people who work exceptionally well, protect something worth preserving and manage to turn that story into flavour.

It is exactly the same thing we look for in wine.

And perhaps that is why raw-milk cheese fascinates us so much.

Each batch is a little different.

Each one tells you something.

And when you find the right glass beside it, sometimes it tells you something it had not yet said on its own.