Saying cheese (the French way) at Sofitel

They say the French Embassy is a little bit of France in Manila, but an argument can be made for a small, glass-enclosed room that has occupied a corner of Sofitel Hotel’s Spiral buffet restaurant for years: L’Epicerie has long been a haven for all things fromage, and the man behind many of those selections is M. Pascal Beillevaire, owner of Fromagerie Beillevaire in Nantes.

Beillevaire was in Manila on July 10 and 11 for a pair of wine and cheese pairing sessions — part of Sofitel’s gustatory French Month activities — and he spoke about the families of cheeses as well as some of his favorites.

Since 1980, when Beillevaire (pronounced “Bay-VAIR”) and his wife Claudine set out to create fine fromages at their Nantes dairy farm, their cheeses have become the staples of France and, indeed, Filipinos who flock to L’Epicerie to sample the very best. In fact, Beillevaire Fromagerie now supplies cheeses to the most important chefs in France — people like Paul Bocuse and Alain Ducasse — and exports around the world. Early in the year, the couple do a road trip, sampling selected cheeses from the best artisanal suppliers in the countryside; they purchase the best raw milk from nearby farmers then refine and age their cheeses for unique flavors. (They’re also one of the only remaining farms still churning butter by hand in wooden churns; more about the butter later.)

M. Beillevaire notes there are as many cheeses in the world as there are days in a year (more, actually), but our small group gathered at Le Bar confined ourselves to 11 cheeses arranged around a plate paired with four different wines, two white and two red, for an afternoon journey through France.

Sofitel F&B manager Tanguy Gras poured the wine, starting with La Moynerie Sur Loire 2014 — a structured, rounded white that we swirled around a bit over a taste of soft, lovely goat cheeses (we sampled Trois Comte, Bonde Gartine, St. Maure and Tomme du Marc first).

We followed this with a red Colombelle L’Original 2015 Coeur de Gascogne — a young, bold, and slightly overwhelming wine for our cheeses, best taken in small sips.

In between pourings, M. Beillevaire spoke of the stringent cheese standards of France — cows, goats and sheep must be raised in a specific region, feeding on specific, well-inspected grasses and water — and how, preferably, only raw, unpasteurized cow’s milk is used to make their cheeses. Yes, that bacteria (penicillum candidum) is what brings the flavor — and interesting colors — to, for instance, Camembert.

We pondered this while tucking into the Tomme du Marc, which had sprigs of aged grape stems set on top, adding even more terroir feel to the texture. This was deep cheese territory we were now entering. One of the more eye-catching varieties, Tomme Brulee, was scraped into ruffled slices that looked like beds of chanterelle mushrooms using a rotating cheese scraper called a girolle.

Between feedings, M. Beillevaire told us about the roughly eight families of cheese:

• Fresh cheeses. Simply curdled and drained, white, not aged, such as cottage cheese, cream cheese, fromage blanc.

• Soft-ripened cheeses. Ripened from the outside, they tend to be smooth, creamy and runny inside, like Bries.

• Washed-rind cheeses. Outside skin is washed with alcohol, beer, brandy or brine during aging; usually pungent aromas, but appetizing in flavor like Raclettes and Epoisses.

• Cooked cheeses. Cheese flesh is cooked under 45C, unpasteurized, still raw.

• Uncooked cheeses. Pressed to extract serum, semi-hard, like Pecorino.

• Cultured (blue) cheeses. Yes, blue and veiny with the addition of penicillum mold, like Roqueforts and Gorgonzolas.

• Fondue (hard/firm) cheeses. Pressed during production, perfect for melting like Gruyere and Emmantaler.

• Spun cheeses. Mostly Italian stretched cheeses like Mozzarella.

At this point, we were no longer moving from goat to cow to sheep, but simply darting around the plate, exploring each flavor at random. Our servers then presented us an added treat: a sampling of M. Beillevaire’s prestigious butters. We had chili, seaweed, regular butter and salted pepper, which we spread on hanks of bread then layered with various cheeses. This magnified the dairy explosion in our mouths by 1,000 percent. (The prestigious butters are available at Chef Selection, 2295 Don Chino Roces Ave. extension.)

Our third wine was a red Clave Le Mas 2013, which is described as having a crunchy, ripe fruit flavor. We began to discover how the wine brought out the full creaminess of the Epoisses, one of Beillevaire’s favorites.

Funnily enough, according to Beatrice Lombard, segment manager of Chef Selection (which imports some 150-200 Beillevaire cheeses for Sofitel monthly), “Filipinos are now going towards the stinkiest cheeses, like Epoisses from the Burgundy area, which is refined with the marc, the deposits of wine skin after pressing, so it develops those flavors.” In general, Filipinos are “more curious” about cheese varieties than other Asian countries, she notes.

The final pairing glass was almost a dessert wine: the Close Des Verdots Cotes De Bergerac Moelleux 2014 is sweet but balanced, bringing home the sensation of going around the world (or at least around your plate) on soft lumps of fromage, and landing gently.

Of course, July is the month of French independence, so Sofitel celebrated with “C’est Bon Trop,” a month-long festival of special meals, wine pairings and cheese festivals that concludes on July 28 with an exclusive wine appreciation class at Le Bar (price is P1,500 net per person).

You may not be able to take a road trip sampling the farm produce of France’s terroir regions anytime soon, but with Sofitel’s French Month, you get a pretty good approximation close to home.