The Mango Lassie

If we were stranded on a desert island where baguettes grew on trees and La Tur—a soft Piedmontese blend of cow, goat and sheep milk cheese—could be netted in the waters, Empanada Boy and I might just live happily ever after. This was only one of the four amazing cheeses we sampled last week at a tasting and cave tour we attended at Murray’s Cheese, in Greenwich Village. Murray’s, whose earliest incarnation dates back to 1940, is a gastronomic temple oozing with fine cheeses. It is one of the few cheese mongers in the U.S. that stores and ages its own cheeses in temperature-and-humidity-controlled caves below the street level. When the Columbia University Alumni Arts League advertised a cheese tasting and tour there, we eagerly signed on.

La Tur, described quite accurately in the tasting notes as being “like ice cream served from a warm scoop; decadent and melting from the outside in,” was definitely our favorite, but the other cheeses were among the most complex, delicious and thought-provoking I’ve tried. Our second cheese, called Beekman 1802 Blaak, is the first cheese attempt from the Beekman 1802 farm, based in Sharon Springs, NY. (The farm was founded in 1802.) The texture of the cheese was slightly chalky with a surprisingly subtle goat’s milk flavor. It didn’t quite pack the punch I was hoping for, but I suspect that was because it followed La Tur.

We paired these first two cheeses with 2006 La Segreta Bianco from Planeta, a winery in Sicily. It’s a carefree blend of Chardonnay, Fiano, Grecanico, Sauvignon and Viognier. The second half of the tasting was paired with 1999 Domini Douro, a blend of Touriga Franca, Touriga Nacional and Tinta Roriz (Portuguese Tempranillo) from the Douro region of Portugal. Portuguese wine is still coming into its own, so it’s possible to get a bottle this old for under $12. This one had plums, blackberries and vanilla with soft tannins—pretty complex for the money.

Our next cheese, the Brebis, came from the Basque country and the Bearn region of the French Pyrenees. It was aged for four-to-six months (in an old railroad tunnel, no less) and had a beautiful, smooth and creamy texture with sweet, nutty notes. We saw numerous cheeses like this in one of the caves down in the basement on our tour. A cheese like this would probably have to have its rind washed in water or a saline solution every so often and be turned lovingly and cradled a few times each day. I’m telling you, these cheeses get a lot of pampering!

The final cheese in the tasting was the Cabot Clothbound Cheddar from Vermont. It was dry, crumbly and tasted strongly of the fresh cut grass the cows that made it had undoubtedly been eating. There was also a great balance between saltiness and sweetness in this one, helping it stand up to the robust wine. This baby was aged (and coddled) for a year to enable all the proper molds could grow—it’s good to be a cheese at Murray’s!

We discovered exactly how good it was once we donned our hairnets and followed one of the cave managers down into the depths of the store. There were four caves and a walk-in refrigerator. We toured through the three where the most action was happening. The first was filled with soft, ripe blue cheeses and was calibrated to let the proper molds grow. The second housed primarily hard cheeses with washed rinds and all different colors of mold (humidity: 93%). The final cave, which also had high humidity, was home to the rounds that aged for even longer like Gruyere and Parmesan.

The smell was strong throughout all three rooms, but what we were smelling was not the wonderful scent of stinky cheese I had expected. Instead, we smelled tremendous wafts of ammonia being released by the cheeses as they aged. My nose hairs trembled under the sheer power of it! If we were not already convinced enough, the smell reminded all of us that the cheeses we were visiting and consuming were, in many ways living, breathing, creatures. And like all living creatures, our trip to Murray’s reminded us, cheeses should be treated with appropriate respect.

Murray’s Cheese
254 Bleecker St.
New York, NY 10014
888.MY.CHEEZ or 212.243.3289