After surviving the Christmas lunch and the crazyness of family and relatives, one of the simple pleasures I 
like to indulge in is a nice cheese platter and a glass of red. By this stage everyone is generally overly full and well lubricated, but if it’s good cheese and good wine, it doesn’t seem to matter.
On Christmas eve I picked up some cheese in Subiaco, Perth from the increasingly popular Simon Johnson chain of fine food stores.
It can be rather expensive shopping at Simon Johnson but this really is a case of you get what you pay for. I picked up some rochfort blue cheese, something I feel in love with while travelling, some intense cheddar, and while a little quirky and expensive, a truffle infused bree, that I had never tasted and for sure it has to be good.
I really didn’t think all that hard about what wine to pair it with, but a red from Spain, the 2005 Salmos Torres did the job. Salmos is certainly produced in quantity, but this wine was recommended by a friend and it was on hand so why not give it a go. Even though the Salmos is quite rich and intense, the tannins quite silky, but it does have an odd spot in the middle palate, that seems to sink into you tongue. Great blackcurrent and chocolate type flavours. This wine is made from predominantly Grenache, with a bit of Cabernet and Manzuelo.
The wine performed best with the cheddar and Rochfort, although the intensity of the Rochfort did overpower the palate a little.
The truffle infused bree, while stunning, was completely dominant on the palate and overpowered the wine. Incidently we tried it with cognac on boxing day, and it seemed to work quit well.
All in all this little exercise cost me about $400, so certainly something I don’t do everyday (although I wish I could).
But hey, it’s Christmas!
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