Parmesan, flavouring profile

Parmesan, flavouring profile

A shaving of aged Parmesan adds more savoury depth to a plate than almost anything else on it, and that depth is what decides the wine.

The compounds that matter. Free glutamate, which builds up as the cheese ages for two years or more and gives it the savoury intensity that makes tannin taste bitter and metallic. Salt, which pulls the other way: it softens tannin and asks for acidity to answer it. And the nutty, faintly brothy notes of long ageing, which a wine with its own nut or bread character meets directly.

What it demands of a wine. High acidity for the salt, and little tannin, because the savoury depth hardens whatever grip is there. A nutty, yeasty or oxidised register mirrors the aged cheese better than bright fruit does. Oak adds nothing, and a very perfumed white competes with the cheese rather than joining it.

Seek. Dry sparkling wine with time on its lees, Champagne or Franciacorta, where acid and a bready depth handle the salt and the nuttiness together. Dry oxidised sherry, Amontillado above all, which carries the same walnut and broth notes as the cheese. Dry sparkling red from Emilia, the cheese's home. Italian reds that are sharp but soft in tannin, such as Barbera from Piedmont.

Avoid

Young, firmly tannic reds, since the savoury depth turns their grip bitter and metallic, a young Cabernet Sauvignon worst of all. Soft, low acid whites, which taste flat beside the salt. Heavily perfumed whites such as Gewürztraminer, whose scent fights the cheese instead of joining it.

Three to reach for. Lambrusco Secco from Emilia-Romagna, Italy, from a serious producer. The Lambrusco category is unreliable enough that the producer matters: most of what reaches export shelves is sweet mass market stuff, so seek a serious dry secco bottling. Amontillado Sherry, Jerez, Spain. Barbera, Piedmont, Italy.