Artisan Cheese and Wine Pairings with Mike Koch of Firefly Farms

Laurie Forster (00:01.27)

All right, well, I am totally stoked for this week's episode of The Sipping Point. In a little bit, I'm gonna bring in Mike Koch from Firefly Farms, and he has lined up four amazing blue cheeses. One of them is his, as well as some others from artisanal cheese friends, cheese maker friends of his from around the country. So stay tuned for that, but we're gonna have a quick little sipping point before we get to Mike.

 

And we're going to talk about food and wine pairing. It's one of the things I'm most passionate about when it comes to wine. And because here in this house, Chef Forrester and I, my husband is a chef, if you don't already know, believe that wine is part of the recipe of your meal. But wine and food pairing can seem totally overwhelming, I know. But there are a couple rules to think about. And then a little...

 

thing that I do called the wine sandwich that I'm going to teach you about right now that can help just break this down and make it so much more fun and approachable. The first thing you want to think about when you're pairing wine and food is to match the weight of the wine to the weight of the food. And what that means is usually your heavier wines are going to pair with your heavier foods, your lighter wines with your lighter foods. So think a nice light crisp Sauvignon Blanc with a salad.

 

versus a Cabernet Sauvignon with a steak. Okay. See that what we're doing here. Then the other thing you want to think about is, you know, what kind of foods and flavors and components are in there. And you'll see as we go through the sipping point and you'll probably learn episode to episode that I'll talk about things like salty foods need wine with acidity. So

 

In Maryland here where I reside, crabs is a huge thing and they're always steamed with that yummy Old Bay spice, which has lots of salt in it. And so if you're trying to pair something with crabs with Old Bay, you want a high acid white wine, typically like a Sauvignon Blanc or a dry Riesling, Pinot Gris, Pinot Grigio. And so those things come into play. Conversely, red wine has something called tannins that binds with animal proteins.

 

Laurie Forster (02:24.436)

in meat and cheese. And that's why that old adage of red wines with red meat came around. But over all of this, when you're trying to figure out a pairing that you want to unveil, maybe for the holidays or for a gathering, you want to always try the wine first. Know the wine all by itself. Let me take a sip.

 

Laurie Forster (02:52.876)

How does it feel on the palette? This one's sort of medium body. Do you get any hits, you know, sort of hits of sweetness on the palette, which I do with this because this is a blend that includes some Riesling and there's a little bit of residual sugar here. And then what about the acidity? My mouth is watering, so I knew this has some decent acidity there as well. So always taste the wine first.

 

Then what you're gonna do, and I have a little morsel of yummy blue cheese here, you're gonna try whatever the food pairing is that you're working on. So I'm gonna take a little bite of this. You're gonna savor it. my gosh, you guys are in for a treat with these blue cheeses. Once you've done that, then you wanna revisit the wine to see how it changes with the food. I don't mind if I do.

 

Laurie Forster (03:52.436)

And that my friends is a wine sandwich. You try the wine by itself, you try your food pairing, and then you go back to the wine and you think, hmm, how does this change? Well, the sweetness in this wine really was a nice offset for the intensity and that sort of salty hit you get from blue cheese. And when I went back to it, it tastes a little bit drier than it did the first time around.

 

because that sugar is matching the intensity in the blue cheese. That's the wine sandwich. Wine, food, wine. And on the second sip of wine after the food pairing, you're just deciding, do you like the wine just as much? Even more. Or if it doesn't work, you might kind of lose the taste of the wine or the wine may end up tasting worse than it did in the beginning. That's a bad pairing. Hopefully we're not getting any of those.

 

So just some quick tips on food and wine pairing. We talked about salt, we talked about fats, we talked about the wine sandwich, but overriding all of this is that when you think about pairings, think about matching the weight of the wine, that's what we describe as body. And when you're taking a sip of wine, think of does it feel like skim milk? That's light bodied. Whole milk? Medium bodied. Or half and half, that velvety texture that's full bodied.

 

So matching that body or weight of the wine to the weight of the dish that you're having, and then thinking about those elements like salts, fats, and even sweetness. When you have sweetness in food, you wanna match that with sweetness in your wine. That's sort of a quick and dirty little pre-preface on food and wine pairing, but I'm so excited to bring in Mike Koch from Firefly Farms. I asked him for his bio, and all he wrote was the big cheese.

 

So let's let him explain a little bit more about how he came to start Firefly Farms, which is one of my favorite cheese makers out there in Accident, Maryland. Let's welcome to the show, Mike Koch.

Forster (00:00.919)

Mike from Firefly Farms. Welcome to the show.

 

Mike Koch (00:04.744)

thank you, . Great to see you and thanks for having me. Really appreciate it.

 

Forster (00:08.459)

Awesome. And you know, it's 2 p.m. on a Monday afternoon as we're taping this. I can't think of a better thing to do at this time than taste your amazing Firefly cheeses with some great wine. So I know this is gonna be an awesome afternoon. And I heard you're a fan of this whole daytime wine drinking. Me too.

 

Mike Koch (00:28.714)

Yes, love day drinking. Yes, I joke with people that I only drink on the job. you own a cheese company. Yeah, I own a cheese company and a wine and cheese store. So it's good. Yeah. So Firefly has been making cheeses out here in the mountains of Western Maryland for 22 years. My husband and partner Pablo Solanet and I started the company.

 

Forster (00:37.312)

Same. That's that is really a great excuse.

 

Forster (00:52.815)

Nice.

 

Mike Koch (00:57.732)

and go figure, here we are all these years later. And the cheeses are pretty much distributed nationwide. And we opened about 10 years ago, a retail store that originally was co-located with our creamery and now is in a separate building down the street and got a liquor license because what goes better with

 

cheese, then wine, and so sell our cheeses, of course, but then have two cheese cases with selections of cheeses makers in the United States that we love. And then of course, some European cheeses, you know, that are essential, including, you know, the Roquefort Papillon, which we're going to taste later today. So, yeah, all good.

 

Forster (01:41.466)

Nice.

 

Forster (01:51.141)

Yes, and you're out in Western Maryland. The town is called Accident, but I know it's no accident that you're there. And I think it's really, I'm just getting ready to celebrate my 20th year as the wine coach. I started my business 20 years ago, December 7th. And I think we must have met early on in your business as well, because you say 22 years. So I think I've met you at the St. Michael's Food and Wine Festival, possibly.

 

Mike Koch (01:57.989)

Yes.

 

Mike Koch (02:10.476)

Yeah. Yeah.

 

Mike Koch (02:18.097)

Yes, yes, yes, yeah, yeah

 

Forster (02:18.929)

20 years ago. So I've been a huge fan of Firefly and I know you are beloved as a cheese brand. I have so many of the people that take my wine classes and do different virtual wine events with me that are huge fans of yours. And I need to get out to accident because I hear that you can set up that cheese and wine tasting. Everybody raves about the experience. So I love that you've put those two together and that's what we're gonna do today.

 

Mike Koch (02:36.024)

Thank you.

 

Forster (02:49.523)

What kinds of cheeses are we going to focus on today? Because you had a vision for our tasting.

 

Mike Koch (02:49.974)

Yeah.

 

Mike Koch (02:55.326)

Yeah, yeah. So Firefly is really committed to artisan cheese making and in the States that's not necessarily completely understood. And because we make goats milk cheeses, the supply of goats milk is really important. know, we're only going to manufacture cheese from fresh goat milk.

 

And for a different podcast, frozen curd is a thing. For your users that are geeky cheese people, investigate. Frozen curd, right? Anyway. so historically, traditionally, blue cheeses were holiday cheeses. They were made in the summer or spring when milk was really abundant and the animals were freshening.

 

Forster (03:33.53)

Okay.

 

Mike Koch (03:52.332)

cheese makers would put those cheeses in the aging room and they would come out at Christmas time and a lot of it was blue cheese. And so we've got four blue cheeses. We've got the mother of all blue cheeses in my opinion, the roquefort, which is the sheep's milk blue from France. And we've got the Papillon brand. We've got a cow's milk blue cheese.

 

from my dear friends at Point Reyes Farmstead Creamery, Lynn Stray and her sisters. They are lovely, lovely people and they make fantastic cheese. We've got their Bay Blue. We've got a cheese from Jasper Hill. Also, dear friends, the Withersbrook Blue. It's a gorgeous cow's milk blue that is then packaged in

 

ice wine, cider, and it's just delicious. And then to round things out, we've got Firefly's Black and Blue, which is 100 % goat's milk. So we've got a sheep, a cow, a marinated or...

 

What's the word I'm seeking? Washed blue with the cider and then a goat. Yeah.

 

Forster (05:14.961)

Okay, well, we also each have brought some wines to the table. And the whole idea, I think, is we wanted to really inspire you, encourage you to, you know, put together a wine and cheese over the holidays or the New Year's. It doesn't have to be super hard. You can pick up these five different blues that Mike's gonna talk about here, and you can pick up a selection of wines and then mix and match. So we're gonna start.

 

with which cheese you think we should start with.

 

Mike Koch (05:46.432)

Let's start with the Point Reyes. We'll finish with the rogue for...

 

Forster (05:48.589)

Okay, funny, that's the first one I have on my board, so that's perfect. And what wine, just out of curiosity, let's just say what wine. We're gonna start with our white that we each brought to the table. So show me your, I know you have a Garnacha.

 

Mike Koch (05:52.856)

Perfect, so.

 

Mike Koch (06:04.064)

Yeah, I have a Garnacha Blanca, which is from Bodega Tempore in Zaragoza, Spain. And we fell in love with this vintner. They were introduced to us and actually made a trip to Accident. And we had a special wine event where a rep from the Bodega was present, Alejandra.

 

and we tasted four of their wines, two reds and two whites. And this, Garnacha Blanca was just a standout. It's, it's a gorgeous bottle and it was awarded at the Berlin, was a gold medalist at the Berlin competition, which, I have been led, I've been told is the sort of peak of wine competitions, the Berlin competition. So. It won in 2023 and is, understand why, you know, there's a lot of great wine out there. This one is special for some really great reasons.

 

Forster (06:58.98)

Nice

 

Forster (07:08.651)

Awesome, and I chose something called the Stump Jump and this is a white that's a blend of Riesling with Viognier, Marsanne & Roussanne, those last three grapes being Rhone Valley of France grapes. But this is made in Australia, in South Australia by a winery called D’arenberg, which I think is making some of the best wines in Australia. And I thought this would be fun because it does have those fun Rhone varietals, but also the Riesling with a little bit of sweetness

 

Mike Koch (07:16.642)

Mm-hmm.

 

Forster (07:38.769)

kind of be a nice counter match for our intensity of the blue, but let's see, let's see. All right, Point Reyes, we'll start there.

 

Mike Koch (07:45.452)

Yeah. So the point, Ray, is a classic cow's milk blue cheese. Of course, with cheese, you want to give it a smell. And this is, you know, it's just lovely and pecan and, you know, there are notes, know, sweetness. And I believe in breaking rules. I believe in coloring outside of the line. So.

 

Forster (08:00.73)

Yeah.

 

Mike Koch (08:10.55)

you know, generally speaking, you would pair blue cheese with red wine. This Garnacha blanca that I'm drinking is beautiful with blue cheeses and really balances the fullness in the mouth. So this I'm gonna enjoy.

 

Forster (08:25.637)

Yeah. my gosh, that is so delicious and just kind of melts in your mouth, which I love.

 

Mike Koch (08:35.84)

Yum. You know, when we do the pairings at Firefly, I always like to start by saying, you know, one inch is pairing is something that's, you know, centuries old. And, and there are places where, you know, it can be very serious. And I love that seriousness and I love that science, but I also love to not take it so seriously. And so while, while we, you know, have

 

these three cheeses and these three wines, which is generally what we do at Firefly. We want you to taste them the way we decided that they would sing, but then color outside of the lines and try all the cheeses with all the wines. And it really gives people a little bit of freedom and permission because I find that wine and cheese pairing can be a little stuffy. And one of things that I always love about you, , is that you are not.

 

Forster (09:28.102)

there.

 

Forster (09:31.747)

thank you, Mike. Well, great. So anytime, I know, even more reason to get over to accident. So for me, with my D’arenburg Stump Shump White Blend, I was so impressed that, well, one, the creaminess of the cheese just melting that nice salty blue intensity that you have there.

 

Mike Koch (09:33.174)

Yes, you can be my day drinking partner anytime.

 

Forster (09:56.215)

your mouth is watering, you want to drink something. luckily I had this white here in the glass. But what's great about it is I took the sip and after the cheese, it still has so much flavor, so much fruit there. And when you pair a blue with something that can't withstand this cheese, it's going to end up tasting like water because it just doesn't have the right elements, the right fruit and intensity to stand up because blue is one of the

 

Mike Koch (10:09.218)

Yeah.

 

Mike Koch (10:15.875)

Yeah.

 

Forster (10:27.332)

I don't know if I'd say most intense, but one of the more intense cheeses that's out there. you can't just, like you said, that's why we tend to go red because we know the reds are gonna to stand, but this actually did really well. What did you think of your Grenache Blanc? I know you already love it. Yes.

 

Mike Koch (10:27.446)

Yeah.

 

Mike Koch (10:31.98)

for sure.

 

Mike Koch (10:37.174)

Yeah. The same. Yes, yes. And I've paired this particular wine with blue cheese in the past and loved it. And it's for a lot of the same reasons, you know, the blue cheese and the Point Reyes is not unique in this. It's peakened and it is red on the tongue in the very same way that saltiness would be red. And so

 

Forster (11:03.057)

Yeah.

 

Mike Koch (11:06.912)

A lot of times people will taste blue cheese and they immediately think salty. it's not because there's a lot of salt in the cheese, it's because that piquancy, that blue sort of bite. And then of course the creaminess of blue cheese, the, particularly cow's milk blues, the milk fat in cow's milk blue is...

 

Forster (11:13.434)

Mmm.

 

Forster (11:18.212)

it's the blue.

 

Mike Koch (11:34.432)

you know, long chain, big fats and they are, they are ripening, they are brutalizing and lipo lysing and you know, the, the creaminess. Yeah, it's I'm a cheese geek, forgive me. The cream, yeah, the creaminess can also have a counterpoint in the acidity of a white wine. So it on the tongue, I think just works really well together.

 

Forster (11:45.017)

Mmm, fancy.

 

No, I love it.

 

Forster (12:02.415)

Yeah, same.

 

We're going to list the links on, on my website. I'll have a page with all the show notes from, from today's show animal posts, all the links to these cheeses and the links to what Mike's drinking and what I'm drinking. got similar, but not exactly the same. So you can, kind of search these things out. And then later Mike's going to tell you about a very special Christmas cheese collection that you can get your hands on as well. But all right. So we tried the point Reyes and

 

our white selections, where should we go from here on our road to blue?

 

Mike Koch (12:39.604)

Let's stick with cow and do the second cow's milk, blue, the withers brook from Jasper Hill. And we'll do this one with the Nebbiolo, but I believe, you know, the white in my case, the Garnacha Blanca would also do really well with this. So Jasper Hill, Matteo Kahler and his brother and their family of blood and choice up in.

 

Forster (12:44.953)

Okay. Okay.

 

Mike Koch (13:07.916)

Vermont are just spectacular cheese makers and influencers in the world of cheese. Matteo and his son Reed visited us this summer and we just had a spectacular time spinning our cheese geek propellers. the folks at Jasper Hill are just, in my opinion, the real deal. They're committed to farming and caring for the animals and making cheese in.

 

Forster (13:22.359)

Nice. Nice.

 

Mike Koch (13:35.948)

the old artisan way, this Withersbrook blue is, it comes in a cube. I've never seen a blue cheese that came in like a eight inch cube almost, maybe seven inch, but, and it's in a bag where there's some of this, you know, liquid wine that is packed with it. And the moisture content of course is maintained and elevated and the sweetness of that, you know, wine is really something that complements the cheese as well. So we'll do that one next.

 

Forster (14:14.863)

Nice, yeah. So let's real quick show our nebbiolo. I have a nebbiolo from Virberti and mine's, I'm assuming yours is from Pivante, Italy, inthe Northwest of Italy. This is the grape that makes Barolo, Barbaresco, which are the wine of kings and queens and also very pricey. But I love finding most of the grape producers will make a nebbiolo, which is kind of like...

 

if you want to think of it as their second label, you the affordable version of a Barolo, if you will. And so this is the one that I brought to the table. And often, Mike, if I'm asked, what's, know, people always want to know what's my favorite wine, which is very difficult to say, because that would be like you saying, what's your favorite cheese? There's just no, I can't. But you know, maybe if I was on death row, and they said, okay, you can only have one more wine before before your time. I believe a Barolo.

 

Mike Koch (14:59.68)

Yeah. Yeah.

 

Forster (15:10.253)

Nebbiolo would be on my list. So I honeymooned there and I've been to Piedmont about four times. I absolutely love the region and the wine. So I was so happy when you threw that out. Which one did you bring to the table?

 

Mike Koch (15:15.512)

Hmm.

 

Mike Koch (15:22.477)

Yeah. I've got the M.A. Monticelli Langhe Nebbiolo. It's also Piedmontese, of course. it's just lovely. It's one of my favorite Nebbiolo's. And you know, the other thing that, you know, I think your listeners would love, you know, to have us unpack is.

 

Forster (15:28.908)

Love it.

 

Mike Koch (15:48.342)

we've got three single varietals here, right? Well, you've got a white blend, but I've got three single varietals, 100 % Garnacha Blanca, 100 % Nebbiolo, and then the third, which we'll get to is 100 % Tanat. And I don't know, lately I've been obsessed with single varietals and understanding the intersection of, you know, varietal region and aging, you know, sort of characteristics. And so this is a...

 

Forster (15:51.108)

Yes.

 

Forster (16:01.467)

Bye.

 

Mike Koch (16:17.016)

100 % Nebbiolo, Piedmontese, of course, and aged in oak. So it's just, it's a beautiful wine. Yeah.

 

Forster (16:25.257)

Nice. Yeah, and I love that, you know, I got mine, I want to say 25, it might have been a little under 25, but it gives you that Barolo feel for half the price of a Barolo. Although one of the things just to kind of make a distinction, and this will be wine geeky, I guess, is that the first wine that I had is a blend, right? I had, you know, the four grapes there.

 

Mike Koch (16:36.128)

Yeah, yeah.

 

Forster (16:48.869)

So it is a blend of different grape varieties. There are different grape varieties that people grow. But when we make the wine and bottle it as just one grape, we call it a varietal wine. And so my first wine is a blend of grape varieties, whereas my last two, like you, are varietal. So nebbiolo on the bottle to not on the bottle when we get to that. And I recently took a class with the master Psalm.

 

And he was saying, people say varietal when they mean varieties. So there are different grape varieties, but when we bottle just one grape and we label it by that grape, it makes it a varietal. That's our distinction. All right, let's get back to the wither, the wither spoon. The wither's broken.

 

Mike Koch (17:19.991)

Thank

 

Mike Koch (17:23.446)

Yes.

 

Mike Koch (17:30.966)

Yes. Great. Yeah. The Withersbrook, yes. yes. And it's, again, gorgeous. The other thing that makes this cheese notable is it's raw milk. And it's the Eden ice cider. I always say wine, but it's actually an ice cider that it's aged in. And you can, I think, Lori really

 

Forster (17:52.644)

Okay.

 

Forster (17:59.311)

my goodness.

 

Mike Koch (18:00.286)

Yes, isn't that spectacular?

 

Forster (18:04.753)

Wow.

 

Mike Koch (18:07.34)

Right? Now taste it with the nebbiolo.

 

Forster (18:08.209)

Wow.

 

That's like an explosion in your mouth. It's so intense. I love that. But I get that sweetness you're talking about too.

 

Mike Koch (18:17.688)

Mm-hmm.

 

Mike Koch (18:21.528)

And you know, don't, one of the things that I love most about Nebbiolo, and I say this as a big red grape lover, Nebbiolo is, it drinks more like a Pinot Noir or a Cinsault, it's a little bit lighter. And yet it has all of that sort of fruitiness and aroma that big reds have, it's just.

 

Forster (18:24.497)

Mmm.

 

Forster (18:32.634)

Right.

 

Forster (18:41.743)

Yes.

 

Mike Koch (18:50.488)

I don't know, it's almost cleansing. It's a nice sort of midway. Yeah, yeah, it's a great midway step between the whites that we tried and the Tannat, which we'll finish with, right? It's sort of stepping towards that.

 

Forster (18:52.941)

Yes, it has good acidity too. Yeah.

 

Forster (19:02.639)

Yeah, it almost fools you, I tell people, because look how, you know, you can't see great here, but one of my things is I always look to see if I can see my fingers through the glass, which I can. So that makes you think, this is going to be kind of a light, you know, peanut, a worry kind of thing. And it does have that elegance on the palette, but it has 10 and two on the back end, right? And that's that dry astringency you get from reds that binds great with animal proteins, which of course are in all our cheeses. And so

 

Mike Koch (19:12.834)

Yeah, yeah.

 

Mike Koch (19:23.136)

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

 

Forster (19:32.515)

So it is so elegant. It's not a clobber you over the head red. So this is a nice way to, if you're trying, if you're like, I've done some light reds, but I don't like cab or I don't like petite Sarah.

 

Mike Koch (19:37.366)

Yes.

 

Forster (19:48.518)

Try the Nebbiolo because it really does have that elegance. I love that you bring that out. And funny you say Pinot Noir because they often call Piedmont the Burgundy of Italy because it has so many different little vineyards and each has its own characteristic just like Burgundy, even though totally different grapes. So I love that too. Yeah, that is an incredible cheese and an incredible pairing.

 

really important and I think you might know this from any of my tastings, but we always taste the wine first and then taste the food pairing and then taste the wine again so that you can see it's kind of like an experiment, right? You have to know what it is before you change something. And then you gotta see how it is after you introduce that new element. And this really has the guts, you know, the gusto, if you will, to stand up to that cheese. And that's always I call it

 

Mike Koch (20:32.354)

Yeah.

 

Mike Koch (20:36.62)

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

 

I'm laughing.

 

Forster (20:46.243)

a wine sandwich is what I call it, that, know, wine, cheese, wine is how I do it.

 

Mike Koch (20:51.458)

Well, and I'm laughing because we're the cheese makers. So when we do it, it's cheese wine cheese. But yeah.

 

Forster (20:56.081)

see, there you go. There you go. Okay. And that's funny. I don't know if you know, but my husband's a chef and we do have that argument like, you know, wine improves the taste of the food and he says food improves the taste of the wine. Okay. What, whatever they're better together is, is in the end, most important thing. wow. Okay. The port just remind me, and you may have already said the point Reyes we tasted first, that was, what was the origin of that?

 

Mike Koch (21:05.378)

Yeah.

 

Mike Koch (21:11.212)

Yeah.

 

Totally. Totally.

 

Mike Koch (21:23.852)

That's California and it's cow's milk. And I believe, I should know this off the top of my head, but I believe it's also raw milk.

 

Forster (21:25.903)

Okay.

 

Forster (21:34.019)

Okay, so we went to California, Vermont, and then of course we're drinking Spain, Australia, Italy. So we're all over the world as far as our cheeses. And I love that you're introducing and promoting some of your colleagues and peers along with your...

 

Mike Koch (21:37.175)

Yes.

 

Forster (21:54.745)

you know, your great cheeses as well. So it's fun in that way. And if people order from you, can they order these other cheeses or just your cheeses? But if they come to your shop, they can taste these other cheeses.

 

Mike Koch (22:08.6)

If they come to our shop, can buy and taste these other cheeses. We will include other cheeses in our cheese club. There's a monthly cheese club and we'll of course include a Firefly cheese, but we'll also include two other cheeses and we pick from among our favorites. And we'll curate some.

 

Forster (22:13.233)

great.

 

Forster (22:21.103)

Okay.

 

Mike Koch (22:35.736)

other sort of sampler boxes that have other cheeses. both Jasper Hill and Point Reyes have very evolved websites and you can go there and order as well, support our friends. Yeah. Yeah.

 

Forster (22:49.233)

Perfect. Awesome. All right. So where we're halfway through our cheese selection. So where should we go now?

 

Mike Koch (22:56.83)

Yeah, so we're going to go to the black and blue now, which is the Firefly Farms cheese and it's goat milk. We're going to leave the mama of goat, excuse me, of blue cheeses to the end. So the black and...

 

Forster (23:00.729)

Okay. Okay.

 

Forster (23:10.201)

And we're gonna taste this one with our Nebiolo and then we'll save our Tannat for our last selection.

 

Mike Koch (23:13.388)

Yes.

 

for the, yeah, the big roquefort , yeah. So I don't know if your listeners know this, but there aren't very many 100 % goats milk blue cheeses in the world. And Firefly makes one of them and I've not done the scoreboard on this, but possibly one of the most awarded black and blue. Yeah, thank you. And it's...

 

Forster (23:40.113)

Congrats.

 

Mike Koch (23:44.394)

Making a blue cheese from goat's milk is altogether different exercise. It's a lot more nuanced because of the very different fat characteristic in goat's milk. Goat's milk cheeses are generally speaking easier for your body to process, less artery clogging, the fats are short chain versus long chain. So good for the ticker and a lot of folks that can't tolerate.

 

Forster (24:05.265)

Really?

 

Mike Koch (24:11.992)

Cows or sheep's milk cheeses eat goats milk cheeses because they are less likely to trigger allergic reactions. so yeah, so

 

Forster (24:20.451)

And is that why you started and focused on goat's milk cheeses? I know you told us that that is the focus, but what made you say, that's it, I'm just doing goat's milk?

 

Mike Koch (24:28.384)

Yeah.

 

So the health really wasn't a reason. It became more of a reason as the company matured and as, you know, sort of nutritional awareness and dietary restrictions started to really, you know, become a thing. We chose goat's milk cheeses because at the time there was this huge hole, like, you know, in Vermont there was Vermont Butter and Cheese, now Vermont Creamery, who was doing goat's milk cheeses to our west.

 

There was Judy Shad at Capriol, further west, there was Mary Keene at Cypress Grove, and then some very, very small, almost micro local goats milk cheeses, and nothing to our south at the time. And we thought, hey, this is a market gap, let's fill it.

 

Forster (25:24.433)

Great. Okay, so black and blue. I get the blue part. What's the black part?

 

Mike Koch (25:27.468)

Yeah.

 

so originally it was covered in black wax and we lost that over the years because it was so much labor and it ended up creating other difficulties in the cheese. So we lost the black wax and we left it and we like to joke that it's black and blue because it packs a punch.

 

Forster (25:35.941)

Okay.

 

Forster (25:46.736)

Okay.

 

Forster (25:54.01)

All right, let's do it.

 

Forster (26:00.482)

Hmm

 

Forster (26:05.723)

So different, but amazing. I mean, because you think blue cheese is blue cheese, right? But each one of these has had such a different characteristic. How would you describe the difference in your goat's milk blue versus some of the cow's milk ones we've already tried or people may have tried?

 

Mike Koch (26:07.468)

Right? Yeah.

 

Mike Koch (26:12.109)

Yeah.

 

Mike Koch (26:26.092)

Hmm. So, Goats Milk Blues, because of that difference in fat, are, it takes a lot more work to get to that creaminess. So, the Point Raised Blue that we tasted first is aged for at least 90 days, three months, right? And so when we first started making Black and Blue,

 

Forster (26:38.833)

Mmm.

 

Mike Koch (26:56.554)

we were releasing it at 90 days and learned and I'll shortcut this because you know, this isn't a podcast about cheese making black and blue. We, you know, did some sensory testing and tasted black and blue at three months, four months, five months, six months, seven months, eight months, nine months. And as a team,

 

we were all just amazed at, there was like this moment that happened, you know, somewhere between five and six months where the tactile, the feel of the cheese in your mouth and the development of the sweetness, that sort of caramel note that finishes just all of a sudden happened. And so we changed our...

 

standard of identity and we now don't release the black and blue until it's at least six months old. So, you know, I, it sure is. Yeah.

 

Forster (27:59.311)

Yeah, that's an investment too, right? It's like winemakers, you know, they make wine and then...

 

have to age it and especially in Spain with lot of the like Reserva wines or Italy, the Reservas, they'll age them for three years and five years before they can even release. So they have all this capital, all of this tied up in these wines, but they're holding them back so that when we get them, they're ready at their peak, you know? And so thank you for that. That's really lovely.

 

Mike Koch (28:21.046)

Yes.

 

Mike Koch (28:26.53)

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And that, you know, the other thing that I'll say is there's a short chain fatty acid in goat's milk called Caprioc acid, Capra or Caprioc, you know, the prefix for goat is cap, right? And as it, you know, degrades as the fatty acid is ripened,

 

through this lipolysis that I threw at you before, it creates flavor and that sort of, I'm tasting goat cheese, flavor is the maturation, the breakdown of those fatty acids. because our farmers are so close and we're processing the milk within 24 hours, that sort of

 

goatiness or umami or earthiness is not super pronounced, but it's there. And Firefly fans love that, right? Because it's goaty, but not too goaty. we've sort of, yeah, you know, we've sort of become famous as goat cheese makers that make not too goaty goat cheese. we're, you know, yeah, yeah, yeah.

 

Forster (29:33.562)

Yeah.

 

Forster (29:38.203)

Yeah.

 

Forster (29:42.998)

Goody.

 

Forster (29:49.809)

I love it. Nice tagline, but it's a mouthful. It's a mouthful. All right. So we have one more goatees and one more wine. we both have the same wine this time, which is really awesome. And you know, Mike, which is so funny about this, a little

 

Mike Koch (29:55.928)

Yes, exactly.

 

Mike Koch (30:05.164)

Yeah.

 

Forster (30:09.965)

while back on the show, I brought to the table one of my favorite white wines, which is from Bodega Garzón. It's their Alvarino, which I'm also a huge fan of as well. And this is a Tanat, which is a red grape. It's from Uruguay. And tell me a little bit about how you, you have the same, how you fell in love with this. As far as red wine goes, Tanat is named after that tannin.

 

Mike Koch (30:18.818)

Yes!

 

Forster (30:37.509)

factor that I talked about earlier, that's that dry astringency. But the nice thing about tannin and reds is it's an antioxidant and it fights free radicals. So little red wine, good for your heart. Tanot is very high in those qualities. So what made you fall in love with this wine?

 

Mike Koch (30:52.557)

Yeah.

 

Mike Koch (30:56.246)

Well, you know, out at Deep Creek at the store, we have some wonderful customers. We love our customers. And one of my loyal wine customers mentioned to me sort of offhandedly this spring, have you heard of Tannat? And I said, no, tell me more about it. And she had recently been to Argentina and had been introduced to Tannat.

 

And she wanted me to see if I could find a Tannat and put it on the shelf. And I thought, okay, well, let me find out. And so I went on this little search and discovered the Garzon Tannat as well as the Albariño. The Albariño is actually on our pairing table this month. Love it, love both of them. Have investigated the vineyard and drank the Tannat, the Garzon and just.

 

Forster (31:44.027)

Ready?

 

Mike Koch (31:53.224)

absolutely fell in love with it. mean, of course it helped that when I was tasting it for the first time, it was, you know, the middle of the summer and we were grilling meats and you know, I'm married to an Argentine so grilled meat is a, you know, almost daily thing. And this, yeah, this wine just sings with, you know, charred red meat proteins, as well as other things. So loved it.

 

Forster (32:03.823)

yeah.

 

Forster (32:08.197)

A given.

 

Forster (32:12.718)

It does.

 

Forster (32:18.865)

Yeah, and you really feel that tannin, but it's elegant. It's not like, but you feel that just all of your mouth, it's just the dry, you know, sort of dryness. And the idea of tannin is that it binds with animal protein. So now when we take this bite of our last blue and we have that and go back to the wine, the wine is cleansing our mouth of the fat.

 

Mike Koch (32:28.248)

Mmm.

 

Forster (32:43.043)

And so that when you take the next bite of your blue cheese, it's just as luscious as before because that tannin kind of cleans your palate. Now you're ready for the next. And so I love that you chose that. And I think it is a grape that not a lot of people know about and can be really fun. And I have a saying, if you can't pronounce it, you should be drinking it. Just meaning like the weird stuff is where...

 

Mike Koch (32:50.07)

Yeah. Yeah.

 

Forster (33:08.269)

the values are, where the fun is, because you know, what fun is it to drink Cabernet Sauvignon every day of your life? Just go out and try new things. And so I love that you brought that to the table. And what about our fourth cheese here?

 

Mike Koch (33:11.053)

Yeah.

 

Mike Koch (33:18.786)

Yeah. Yeah.

 

Mike Koch (33:24.528)

The fourth cheese is sheep's milk and is from France. It's roquefort, right? Roquefort. And it's the maker is papillon. And, you know, Roquefort is, I don't know how old it is. My guess is it's, you know, several hundred years, if not, you know, close to a millennium, right? I mean, the French.

 

Forster (33:28.132)

Okay.

 

Forster (33:34.064)

Yep.

 

Mike Koch (33:52.458)

learned cheese making, all my French friends out there, you please cover your ears. The Romans were the first ones that really, you know, brought cheese making technique as we know it into France and the Iberian Peninsula. And the caves in Roquefort where, you know, this blue mold, penicillium roqueforti is native, created this beautiful cheese. so sheep's milk has twice the fat.

 

Forster (33:57.371)

Yeah.

 

Forster (34:03.536)

Right.

 

Mike Koch (34:22.308)

as cow's milk and goat's milk and cow and goat milk have about the same amount of fat, but it's very different, short chain versus long chain. So sheep's milk starts with double the amount of fat and it's big long chain fatty acids like you find in cow's milk. So it just gets creamy melt in your mouth and Roquefort is just, you know, in any language, one of my favorite cheeses. Yeah.

 

Forster (34:25.328)

Hmm.

 

Forster (34:47.601)

All right, let's taste it.

 

Forster (34:51.945)

wow.

 

Forster (34:56.633)

intense.

 

Forster (35:00.614)

And that makes sense now because we're moving to the more intense wine of the three that we've been tasting. And that's kind of a little shorthand pairing tip. The bigger the food, the bigger the wine is kind of.

 

Mike Koch (35:05.336)

Well then.

 

Mike Koch (35:16.28)

I could eat blue cheese and drink wine all afternoon. What?

 

Forster (35:20.741)

I know that that almost tastes the same as it did before the cheese. That's how

 

how amazing that tannat is. It keeps all of its qualities. It's probably, you know, perception, because nothing changes when you have the wine and cheese together. It's just your perception is what on the palate that changes, but that is a delicious pairing. And, and like we said, you could go back and do the black and blue with the tannat, and that's also going to be great. The nebbiolo with any of these four, as well as your garnacha blanca, the my white blend there.

 

Mike Koch (35:29.816)

Yeah.

 

Mike Koch (35:36.502)

Yeah.

 

Yeah.

 

Mike Koch (35:45.058)

Ahem.

 

Mike Koch (35:48.652)

Yeah. Yeah.

 

Mike Koch (35:56.087)

Yeah.

 

Forster (35:58.528)

And you know, if you're into dessert wines, a Sauternes and blue cheese is kind of a classic pairing that a lot of people talk about it is of course a sweet wine made from another, you know, fungus or noble rot on the grapes that kind of make really concentrates their sugar and makes the wine sweet. So that'd be a different way.

 

Mike Koch (35:58.84)

for sure.

 

Forster (36:21.891)

you know, when we would travel in Australia, everybody wants the dessert course, the dessert course, but they always offered a cheese course, which I really appreciate because I'm not big on sweets, but I love cheese. So I would always do the cheese course over a piece of pie or cake or whatever. And so that's just a fun way. Drink your sweet and eat, you know, your amazing cheeses. So there's another idea for your little get togethers if you have sweet wine lovers.

 

Mike Koch (36:43.212)

Me too.

 

Mike Koch (36:47.288)

Yeah.

 

Mike Koch (36:51.702)

Yeah, yeah, you know, the Roquefort, I found the, I think the Garzon Tannat has a little bit of spiciness almost, and almost smokiness, not quite like smoke as in barbecue smoke, but I don't know, almost like fresh tobacco. you know, just beautiful, yeah.

 

Forster (37:00.857)

Yes, yes.

 

Forster (37:14.371)

Yeah, and so inky. Look at these two. Like the color on that tannat is...

 

Incredible. Well, Mike, we could sit here and do this for hours because it's just so much fun and you're such a wealth of knowledge about cheese. And I think this has been great. think hopefully we've inspired some blue cheese and wine pairing parties. If people want to go to your website, buy your cheeses, where do they go? And then do you have anything special for the holidays that we should check out?

 

Mike Koch (37:25.324)

Yeah.

 

Mike Koch (37:40.235)

Okay.

 

Mike Koch (37:45.206)

Yes, so folks can go to fireflyfarms.com/shop or just go to fireflyfarms.com and click the shop online link. All of the cheeses are available there a la carte and we have a couple of samplers that are curated little collections with crackers and jams and such. And for Christmas, we have curated a Christmas sampler which

 

Forster (38:08.411)

Love that.

 

Mike Koch (38:13.64)

is a great gift and a great sort of thing to order and have as a party that's ready to go. you don't have to worry about doing the shopping. Yes. Yes.

 

Forster (38:23.407)

Yes. Save us the work, Mike. Save us the work. Awesome. And then of course, I want to encourage folks to get out to Accident Maryland and visit you out there as well when they can. Mike, thank you so much for coming on The Sipping Point. I always learn so much from you and it's always so much fun. And I hope you will come back again because I know there's so many more cheeses we can talk about. Cheers. Thank you.

 

Mike Koch (38:50.114)

Cheers, will do. Thank you, . Good to see you.

Laurie Forster (00:01.132)

Well, I don't know about you, but I could have hung out with my Coke from Firefly Farms for a lot more time. I had a blast learning about all the different styles of blue cheeses and tasting our three great pairings that we had, one white and two red. And hopefully this has inspired you to put together a wine and cheese gathering with your family, with your friends over the holidays or New Year's and beyond. It really is truly...

 

something that's easy to throw together and everyone, well, everyone loves cheese, don't they? Anyway, check him out at fireflyfarms.com. He's got lots of great Cheese of the Months Club, a Christmas sampler that he mentioned, and so much other great stuff out there. And if you get to Western Maryland near Deep Creek, he's an accident and visit him in the tasting room. Such a blast. Everything I've heard is great and I need to do it myself.

 

Once again, thank you for tuning into The Sipping Point. If you want to support, I would love that right now. We're keeping the show sponsor and ad free. Just go to thewinecoach.com and hit podcast and click support. And there are all kinds of options starting at $3. You'll get a digital copy of my book, The Sipping Point and other great benefits for subscribers. And I would appreciate. And then even if you don't do that and you love this podcast,

 

Just pass it along, let someone else know who loves wine, that they can tune in and subscribe on Apple Podcasts, iHeartRadio, Spotify, or wherever else you get your podcasts. Until next week, guys, cheers.