Drinks advice

Aged Gouda and apricot chutney with Delaforce Tawny Port

On the board are chunks of aged Gouda with the crystals that long ageing brings, next to a small dish of apricot chutney with vinegar, clove and cayenne. Opposite them the port is a tawny of five to six years, whose residual sugar flattens the salt of the cheese.

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Aged Gouda
Photo: goblinbox_(queen_of_ad_hoc_bento), CC BY 2.0

From the shelf

The bottle

Delaforce is a port house from the Douro and this is the tawny from the standard range. A tawny matures in oak casks and is racked several times, so that oxygen gets in and the wine changes colour from red to amber. According to the label, this blend has an average age of five to six years, and so falls into the class that Wines of Portugal describes as tawny reserve: a blend of better quality with an average of five to seven years and a colour between ruby red and brownish. The bottle is 20 percent alcohol and comes in 75 centilitres. For tawny, the Instituto dos Vinhos do Douro e do Porto recommends a serving temperature of 10 to 14 degrees.

Delaforce Tawny Port

The combination

Why this works together

An aged Gouda is a cheese that lives on maturation, just like this tawny. In the cheese, after a year or more, proteins have broken down into free amino acids, and it is those amino acids that form the hard little crystals and give the savoury, almost broth-like depth. In the cask something similar happens to the port: years of oxygen turn the fresh fruit into nut, caramel and dried fruit. Those two lines of maturation meet. Aged Gouda is also salty, and the residual sugar of the tawny dampens that salt, as Green and colleagues showed for sucrose in flavour mixtures. The chutney builds the bridge: the apricot brings ripe stone fruit that connects with the dried fruit in the glass, and the vinegar and the cayenne bring the acidity and the kick that keep cheese and port from becoming too heavy together.

At the table

The dish

  • For 4 people
  • Ready in 1 hour and 30 minutes
  • Type cheese course

What you need

  • 300 g mature Gouda
  • 375 g fresh apricots, halved and roughly chopped
  • 125 g onions, chopped
  • 125 ml white vinegar
  • 190 g granulated sugar
  • 1.5 g salt
  • a quarter teaspoon of ground nutmeg
  • a quarter teaspoon of gingerbread spice
  • a quarter teaspoon ground cloves
  • a quarter teaspoon of cayenne pepper
  • a quarter teaspoon of curry powder

How to make it

  1. Remove the stones from the apricots and chop the halves coarsely.
  2. Put all the ingredients for the chutney into a large, heavy-bottomed pan and bring them to the boil.
  3. Turn the heat down and let the chutney simmer gently, uncovered, for 1 hour, stirring occasionally.
  4. If the chutney is still not thick enough, let it simmer for another 10 minutes until no free liquid remains.
  5. Spoon the chutney into hot, sterilised jars, seal them and let them cool. This chutney does not need to mature and can go straight on the table.
  6. Take the cheese out of the fridge half an hour before serving, break it into chunks and serve it with the chutney on a board.

In the glass

Serving

Serve this tawny at 10 to 14 degrees, so cooler than room temperature; half an hour in the fridge usually gets it there. Use a tulip-shaped glass and fill it no more than a third. Decanting is not necessary, as the wine has been fined in the cask. An opened bottle of tawny or tawny reserve keeps well for three to four weeks according to the institute; store it upright in a cool place or in the fridge.

All about Delaforce Tawny PortBack to Drinks advice from ’t Bockje

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