Caseificio Dell'Alta Langa

If you are looking for cheeses to accompany sparkling wine for a holiday party, you don't have an onerous task. So many cheeses pair seamlessly with sparkling wines that the challenge is deciding what to leave behind.

Northern Italy's robiola cheese varies considerably from one producer to the next, depending on family recipe, local custom and available milk. Made throughout the Piedmont and Lombardy regions, robiola may include goat's, sheep's or cow's milk, or any combination thereof. ...

Fresh cheeses rarely have the compelling character of mature ones, in part because young cheeses are higher in moisture and thus less concentrated in flavor. What's more, a 2-week-old cheese hasn't had time to undergo all the enzymatic changes that generate the multiple aromas of an aged cheese. ...

Other critics do a Top 10 list at year's end, so surely a cheese columnist can do the same. But my task is harder, I concluded as I reviewed the past 51 weeks, because I like all the cheeses I feature. ...

Any cheese lover would be pleased to have a dinner guest or houseguest show up with one of the following cheeses. Truffled Brillat-Savarin. Merchants carry this unctuous French triple-cream cheese all year, but the truffled version is a holiday treat. ...

Unlike other wines, red and white, sparkling wine has few enemies on the cheese board. It's as happy with a young, soft Robiola as it is with aged Parmigiano-Reggiano, as compatible with a buttery triple-cream as with a pungent blue. I can't make sense of it, but it's true.

For someone who claims to prefer aged cheeses, I have fallen hard for Brunet, a young goat's milk cheese from Northern Italy. But I should not be surprised. Every cheese I have sampled from its producer, the Caseificio dell'Alta Langa, has been divine. ...

Nestled in its ruffled paper doily, a petite round of La Tur looks like a fragile, fussed-over pastry. And after one taste, you know you have a cheese that can truly stand in for dessert. The operative word is luscious. I can think of no other cheese with a more ingratiating texture.