Raclette & Wine
Long winter evenings and New Year’s Eve are excellent opportunities for a fondue or raclette in delightful company. The broad range of available raclettes offers a great diversity of exiting potential combinations with German wines. Wines of Germany (DWI) offers you a few guidelines for the suitable choice of wine.
Facts
-
16,738 tons
was the total production of Swiss raclette cheese in 2022
-
50 % Fat in dry matter
can be found in Raclette cheese
Raclette
Originally, Raclette is the name of a cheese from the Swiss Canton of Valais. With its nutty aromas, it is a particularly delightful side dish for jacket potatoes. Today, Raclette mostly refers to a companionable pleasure, where the guests gratinate not just potatoes, but also fresh vegetables, salami and ham or even fresh fruit with full-flavored cheese. This diversity is best accompanied by a very versatile wine such as Pinot Gris from Baden or the Pfalz. If the little pans are mostly filled with raw ham and salami, a fruity Trollinger from Württemberg or a smooth Frühburgunder from the slopes along the river Ahr are great wine companions. They accentuate the hearty character of the cheese. Raclette varieties that use fresh fruit such as pineapple or mango as well as cooked ham are very well supported by a dry Riesling from regions such as the Middle Rhine or the Hessische Bergstraße. These wines’ own fruity notes further enrich the food composition.
What does the word raclette mean?
Raclette is derived from the word "racler", which means "to scrape" in the native French dialect. Scraping for the reason that after melting over the fire, the cheese is gently scraped or "scraped" from the cheese wheel.
