While there are some good rules of thumb for paring cheese and wine for your next gathering there is more to a good paring then just some general rules. While knowing that paring a regional cheese with a wine from the same area will most often be a good choice there is more to putting just the right variety on your Formaggio Cheese Board for your next gathering.
Understanding cheese itself and characteristics of each type of cheese will help the hostess pick just the right kind to go with their wine selection. There are roughly eight styles of cheese and the lines between the any two may be blurry since any cheese can fit into one category or even two. Fresh, soft-ripened, washed-rind, natural-rind, blue-veined, uncooked, cooked, and processed are the main types of cheese and the characteristics for each will determine how they are served and handled.
Of course classifying by how they are processed is only one way of sorting cheeses with country of origin, fat content, texture and any special characteristics other good methods as well. Just like with wine spending time with various cheeses and trying as many as possible are the best ways to learn what cheeses will pare well with wines of various types for your next gathering.