The Best Cheeses for Gift Giving and Entertaining

Cheese is the crowd-pleasing answer to your entertaining and gift-giving needs. Bring this list to your local cheese shop to ensure you choose the best.

Truffled cheeses. It’s easy to make a glamorous hors d'oeuvre by melting truffled cheese on toast or a crusty square of polenta. Here are five aromatic cheeses to try:

• Truffle Tremor from Cypress Grove Cheddar, goat cheese laced with aged black summer truffles. Winner of the 2009 sofi Gold award for Outstanding Cheese or Dairy Product.
• Capra Cremosa con Tartufo Nero from Piemonte, truffled goat cheese
• Truffled Tuscan pecorino
• Truffled Fin Briard or Brillat-Savarin, both cow’s milk cheese from France
• Highly scented Sotto cenere, a raw cow’s milk cheese from northern Italy laced with black truffles

Triple cremes. What festive beverage flows at holiday parties? Champagne, of course. And what cheeses go best with sparkling wine? Many would give the nod to triple cremes, those luscious cream-enriched cheeses that coat the palate. These will pair beautifully with bubbly:

• Pierre Robert
• Jean Grogne
• Explorateur
• Brillat-Savarin
• Marin French Cheese Company’s triple-creme Brie

Presentation cheeses. Look for cheese with aesthetic value. Small, pretty cheeses fit the bill when you want to impress for less. Look for:  

• Leaf-wrapped or edible flower-coated chevres
• Harley Farms’ Cranberry-Walnut or Apricot-Pistachio chevres

Giftables. Look for small-format cheeses, nicely packaged, for thoughtful, delicious house gifts.

• One-pound cloth-wrapped cheddars
• Stilton in crocks
• Waxed cheeses from top producers like Grafton Village and Cabot Creamery

Add-ons. Don’t forget all the goodies that turn a cheese into a memorable cheese course.

• Truffle honey for blue cheeses
• Aged balsamic vinegar for drizzling on Parmigiano-Reggiano
• Fig cakes and Marcona almonds for Spanish cheeses
• Mostarda for Italian cheeses
• Plump California golden raisins sun-dried on the stem

Happy ending. For a fabulous ending to a meal, try Baked Ricotta from Italy to make a good impression. This beautiful, sliceable, molded cheese with a golden surface is lightly sweetened and flavored with lemon, orange, almond or chocolate. Cut it into wedges for dessert, with poached pears or a shower of grated bittersweet chocolate.

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