Epoisses Meets Its Match What to pair with a cheese that's considered the ultimate wine killer

ONE OF THE CHEESES I LOVE BEST is a real stinker to pair wine with.

-  Laura Werlin

How do you pair "barnyard" with wine? Or "stinky socks"? The cheese in question? Époisses, from Fromagerie Berthaut.

Made in the heart of France's Burgundy region for hundreds of years, this luscious, creamy round comes in its own wooden box and is distinguished by a bright orange rind. That color comes about through certain beneficial bacteria working together with brine and a spritz of Marc de Bourgogne (a brandylike drink that comes from the distillation of leftover seeds and skins after wine is made).

Although the axiom "what grows together goes together" often holds true, when I visited Berthaut several years ago, I discovered that the local wine was not a match. White Burgundy is legendary, but it was legendarily bad with Époisses. So, too, was red Burgundy, from the other heralded grape of the region, Pinot Noir. In both cases, the cheese dominated, and the wines somewhat lost their souls.