Cider Chat · Ria Windcaller: Award-winning Cidermaker, Podcaster | Craft Beer Columnist

482: FLX Cider & Cheese Pairing with Cheesemonger Rachel Freier

December 17, 2025·42 min·3 clips

Discover how three women brought goat cheese to every menu in America, starting in the 1980s.

A cider tasting becomes a cheese lesson. Ria Windcaller opens at New York City Cider Fest, where Rachel, a cheesemonger, lets her record a live room with four Finger Lakes cider makers and their pairings. The tape has the nice looseness of an event. You catch the small joke, the plate directions, and the shuffle of people figuring out which glass and which cheese to try first. Eve Cidery starts on the left. The speaker traces its story through Autumn, who started it at 21, and James Commons, the older apple grower and cider maker whose knowledge still sits inside the cider. Northern Spy gets treated like the useful apple it is: crisp, minerally, bright, and good at waking up the mouth at the start of an occasion. Rachel and the makers keep pairing from getting fussy. They steer listeners toward smell, acidity, dryness, texture, and the simple pleasure of tasting cider next to cheese. Then Humboldt Fog lands on the plate. The white, crumbly cheese from Cypress Grove in California's Humboldt County gives the cider's acidity something creamy to push against. The transcript has rough spots, but the room still comes through. The best bits are the apple talk, the tasting-table chatter, and Ria letting the event breathe before returning to Ciderville with December bustle, a holiday tease, and the Talking Poms sendoff. It feels less like a seminar than standing near the table with a small glass and a plate.

As heard by us

A cider-and-cheese tasting that feels lived-in rather than lectured.

Cider Chat uses a New York City Cider Fest cheese tasting to show how cider, cheese, and makers can meet at the table without feeling staged. Rachel Furman and four Finger Lakes cider makers move through the pairings in a way that keeps the focus on details, from Northern Spy…

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Why you'd press play

Press play when you want to taste cider like a cheesemonger.

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