The classic wine and cheese party should become a thing of the past, if US research is to be believed. A team of 11 expert tasters found their palettes dulled when they ate a range of strong and mild cheeses, before eight red wines of varying quality. The cheese suppressed almost all flavours, even strong ones, research to be published in the American Journal of Enology and Viticulture in March said. The team concluded cheese proteins must coat the mouth, deadening perceptions. The researchers, led by Dr Hildegard Heymann from the University of California, Davis, asked their panel to compare cheap and more expensive bottles of wine from four different varieties without cheese. They then had to taste the wine after a bite of eight different types of cheeses ranging from strong stilton and gorgonzola to the milder mozzarella and emmental. The tasters were asked to evaluate the strength of various flavours and aromas of the wine. But they found the cheese suppressed almost every flavour including sourness and astringency, and berry and oak. The only aroma enhanced by the cheese was a butter aroma, the researchers found. However, stronger cheeses appeared to mask the wine flavour more than milder cheese. Dr Heymann suggests that fat from the cheese may bind to flavour molecules in the wine, or that it might coat the mouth.
