Murray's Cheese - and wine too

Cheese, Murray's Cheese ... and some wine too ...

Enjoying a get-away weekend with son Ryan and daughter-in-law Michelle, visiting son Alec in NYC, we dined at Murray's Cheese Bar in Greenwich Village, one of his favorite haunts. The eatery is a few doors down Bleecker Street, from the legendary cheese retailer and wholesaler. As in earlier adventures there, we left it to the 'Cheese Monger' to select our cheese flight - one of five and one of eight different cheeses or meats.

Each cheese meat combination is paired with a sauce, spread or associated delectable accompaniment such as a orange marmelaide or a pistachio paste, both shown below.

The presentation of the cheese plates by the Cheese Mavin servers was masterful, poetic, professional and informative, a performance deserving of more attention and respect and worthy of an ovation! Following the cheese meat plates came Mussels in white wine broth, grilled Kale sprouts, and Lamb meatballs in a tomato fennel sauce and feta cheese.

For pairing, we selected three wines from Murray's winelist, one white and two reds. For the white, there's always room for a bubbly, a sparkling wine, we selected Domaine Huet Vouvray Pétillant, a Chenin Blanc based wine from the Vouvray in the Loire Valley in Northern France.

Chenin Blanc is not normally associated with sparkling wine, the specialty and province of Champagne in France, rather the incredibly versatile grape is used across the range of dry whites, to semi-sweet to luscious sweet wines.

This version of sparkling wine is considerably less expensive than a Champagne of equivalent quality.

Domaine Huet Vouvray Pétillant Cuvée Huet Brut 2010

This was light, straw colored, crisp and minerally with a bouquet and flavors of floral, peach, ripe pear and sweet spice giving way to almond and a layer of yeast that came across as a bit pasty that diminished the fruits.

RM 87 points.

https://www.cellartracker.com/wine.asp?iWine=1413192






Laurent Betton Saint-Joseph Syrah 2013, Rhone Valley, France

The tangy acid was a nice accompaniment to the hearty bold cheeses and meats.

Son Ryan favors and drinks a lot of these Northern Rhone Valley Syrahs. This was much lighter than those we are accustomed to drinking, from the Rhone Valley, or Syrahs we get from Australia or even California.

This was ruby colored, medium light bodied, crisp bright acidity with black berry fruits, tones of black pepper and a layer of graphite creosote with a tangy spicy finish.

RM 88 points.

https://www.cellartracker.com/wine.asp?iWine=2112330


La Poderina Brunello di Montalcino Sangiovese 2010, Tuscany, Italy 

This bigger bolder more complex and concentrated wine rounded out our flight with a different style and character that matched the boldest and most forward cheeses, and the meats in the tasting.

This was ideally paired with the Lamb meatballs in tomato fennel sauce. 

Dark blackish garnet colored, medium full bodied,  complex, concentrated layers of rather subdued dried blackberry and black cherry, tones of smoke, leather, tobacco and hints of cedar spicy oak and graphite on a smooth polished moderate tannin finish.

This was so good, we ordered a second bottle! 

RM 91 points.

https://www.cellartracker.com/wine.asp?iWine=2104005

http://www.murrayscheesebar.com/

A highlight of the weekend was seeing Alec's new apartment with its spectacular views from Midtown to the financial district, shown below.

Murray Cheese Selection

Murrays Cheese - Ultimate Wine Cheese Experience

Cheese Murray Cheese - Ultimate Wine Cheese Experience

For the ultimate cheese and wine experience, Murray's Cheese Bar on Bleecker Street in Greenwich Village offers an extensive cheese selection from Murray's Cheese shop a few doors down. Artisan cheeses are selected and served as learned and imaginative pairings with meats, beer, wine or even aperitifs- select your own or let their 'Cheesemonger' prepare a flight for you. Visiting son Alec for a NYC getaway weekend, he took us to Murray's, one of his favorite haunts for dinner.

Cheese and or meat selections are available ala carte, in pairs of three, four, five or eight different selections. All this in combination with an imaginative list of wines or craft beers, the cheese course can be the pre-dinner starter, the dinner main course, or the after dinner option. Tonight, thirty four cheeses and eight meats were available from which to choose on the daily menu.

Murray's Cheese, name for founder Murray Greenberg, has been a fixture on Bleecker Street in Greenwich Village since 1940. In the early ‘90s, Rob Kaufelt bought Murray’s and transformed the downtown flagship store into a destination for food lovers. He sourced rare cheeses from around the world, built cheese caves to age and ripen them, and started cheese classes for foodies and professional alike in Murray's own classroom.  

Today,  Murray’s ships cheese across the nation to chefs and supermarkets through an extensive wholesale business. In 2012, Murray’s Cheese Bar opened nearby serving brunch, lunch, and dinner featuring the broad selection of cheeses from the cheese caves beneath Bleecker Street. 

On this evening, two flights of meat and cheese, paired with two wines, a white and a red, were our dinner, if you add in a bowl of the tomato bisque soup. We also had their Burrata Crispy artichoke & grilled bread plate.

For the wines, since we're in New York, I selected a New York State, Long Island wine, Cabernet Franc from Bedell Cellars. For the white, we had a Loire Valley Sancerre Chenin Blanc. In retrospect the white was too timid to stand up to some of the hearty cheeses and meats so next time, I'll select a heavier more robust expressive white wine - Vionier, Chardonnay, an Alsatian, or even a Riesling.

We selected two 4X4 flights (shown) - two plates of four meats and four cheeses, each accompanied by a garnish highlight such as a pistachio nut paste, a blueberry compote, natural honey paste, or cranberry glaze. Of the eight cheeses we selected, five were notable and worth repeating: my favorites were:

La Tur, from the notable Italian wine region of Piemonte, described by Murray's as "a dense, creamy blend of pasteurized cow, goat and sheep milk. Runny and oozing around the perimeter with a moist, cakey, palette-coating paste, its flavor is earthy and full, with a lingering lactic tang."

From the Vermont Cellars of Jasper Hill comes 'bacony and creamy Bayley Hazen Blue, (below right) named for a Revolutionary War road in Vermont’s Northeast Region, a raw milk, farmhouse blue. Produced by the Kehler brothers, this is a like an English Stilton with its 'dry yet dense paste, full of balanced chocolate, hazelnut, and licorice flavors".


From France comes Selles-sur-Cher (left, leftmost) goat cheese. While traditionally, fresh cheeses were dusted in wood ash to encourage the development of a molded rind with patches of blue and gray mold, Murray's imports unaged rounds so they can control the development of a perfect rind: thin and cohesive in their own aging cave. The result is "a tiny, oozing creamline atop a fluffy interior paste with the pleasant texture of damp clay. The rind delivers insistent mineral notes, while the center is all briny, goaty tang and new-mown grass."

Another French cheese, La Tremblaye Persille de Rambouillet, "an incredibly smooth, creamy goat’s milk blue from La Tremblaye dairy in the countryside surrounding Paris. Originally a grain farm, it now boasts a herd of 150 cows and 600 Alpine goats and is located on picturesque farmland, surrounded by ponds and fields, lying adjacent to Rambouillet forest. From its ashy exterior to its “parsley veined” interior, the cheese’s supple texture melts on the tongue and fully coats the mouth with nuanced, terroir-driven flavors like clean lactic notes, white pepper and sweet cream. Simple companions, such as walnuts and honey add complementary and contrasting textures".

Lastly, St Stephen from New York Hudson Valley creamery/producer, Four Fat Fowl, a cow cheese named for the "colonial rental fee charged by the last landlord of Rensselaerswyck (what’s now Rensselaer county”), which amounted to a day’s labor, including ten to twenty bushels of wheat. Their small, bloomy rounds are delicately buttery, with hints of sun-dried wheat and sweet cream beneath its pillowy rind, making St. Stephen a true expression of local terroir." This was served with local, NY honey and fresh berry compote. 


Bedell Cellars North Fork Long Island Cabernet Franc 2013

Bedell Cellars produce a range of hand-crafted wines that get the most out of the unique North Fork maritime terroir - sandy soil, warm summers moderated by sea breeze cooled nights. I visited Bedell Cellars back in 2001 and thought they were one of the highest quality producers in the area, especially of red wines.

Slight opaque ruby colored, medium bodied, smokey, slightly earthy black cherry fruits with a hint of leather and cigar box on a slightly astringent tangy finish.

RM 87 points.



https://www.cellartracker.com/wine.asp?iWine=1984796

http://www.bedellcellars.com/



http://www.murrayscheesebar.com/ 

http://www.murrayscheese.com/