You've probably dropped in on enough wine tastings that you can easily detect hints of black cherry in most Merlots, right?

OK, maybe not.

Regardless, you can't deny that wine's popularity and accessibility has grown over the past few years.

You can pop into any local wine store most any night of the week and probably encounter an opportunity -- casual or formal -- to taste your way to an educated palate.

But what about cheese? Could you describe the difference between mascarpone and Camembert, or say, Humboldt Fog and Fourme D'Ambert?

Uh, neither could we.

That's why Julia Battaglini and Sara Adduci of River City Cellars are here to assist.

For the past 10 years, River City Cellars has been helping educate Richmond's collective wine palate with one-on-one customer service and casually fun weekly wine tastings. Earlier this year, the Carytown shop upped its game by introducing monthly cheese tasting classes.

The classes are every first Monday of the month from 6:30 to 8 p.m.

The focus of each 20-person class varies from month to month. Topics might include comparing cheeses from certain regions -- June's class pitted Northern Italian cheeses against Southern Italian -- or studying cheeses with similar methods of production.

Battaglini also hopes to offer Cheese 101 classes every six months or so. For those who want to start with the basics, these will cover everything from storage and care to choosing accompaniments.

. . .

So how do these two know so much about cheese?

Adduci, a 23-year restaurant industry veteran, turned her "first true cheese crush" -- aged Gouda -- into a career as River City Cellars' official cheese buyer.

Besides "tasting and reading and tasting again," Adduci recently expanded her knowledge base during a cheese-making expedition at the Meadow Creek Dairy in Galax..

Battaglini managed Ellwood Thompson's wine department for 3 years prior to opening River City Cellars and, subsequently, developed an interest in wine and cheese pairings. She recently completed "Cheese U," an intense three-day cheese boot camp at Murray's, New York City's premier cheese shop.

. . .

If you can't make it to a class, how else can you learn more about cheese?

"You can taste anything in our case," Battaglini says.

The more you taste, the more you learn about your preferences and how to articulate them.

"When someone is standing in front of you with a spoon with a piece of cheese on it, and you say 'I don't like stinky cheese.' We're like, 'Well, how stinky is stinky?'" Battaglini says. "For some people Cheddar is stinky, and we want to find that threshold."

When buying something unfamiliar for the first time, "you often feel like it's an open invitation to be humiliated," Battaglini says. "You don't know what the common language is."

Tasting and talking about cheese, says Battaglini, "helps everybody learn what their tastes are."

. . .

After you figure out what you like, what should you look for when buying cheese?

"Fresh cut, fresh cut, fresh cut," Battaglini says. "Whether it's in our store or any other store, this is the most important factor."

"Be that guy and say, 'Can you cut me a fresh piece?' Less exposure to air, less time in plastic -- the more time it's still attached to its wheel, the better it's going to taste," Battaglini says.

"If it smells like ammonia, it's over the hill. When cheeses age they produce a little bit of [an ammonia smell], but if they produce so much you're knocked over by it, it's gone too far."

River City Cellars is acut-to-order cheese shop. Nothing is prepackaged or shrink-wrapped.

Its cheese case usually has anywhere from 50 to 75 different cheeses depending on the time of year and what's available seasonally, including Richmond's largest selection of Basque cheeses. New orders come in weekly.

Battaglini has purchased the space next door (once home to Urban Artifacts) and is in the process of opening Secco, wine bar. In addition to a 30-seat dining room and 30-seat wine lounge serving pan-Mediterranean, tapas-style cuisine, Secco will feature a private classroom for cheese and wine classes.

"With more space, [the classes] can be more formal -- a place for a plate and a place for notes," Battaglini says. "So there will be more of an emphasis on pairing wine or beer with cheese."

With the help of the cheese classes, Battaglini and Adduci hope more people become "cheese junkies."

"Once you start tasting different cheeses and exploring really delicious, diverse cheeses, we want people to start thinking, 'I just can't bring myself to eat the half-pound of $6 Cheddar anymore,'" Adduci says and laughs.

River City Cellars

Next Cheese Class

Cheese	Description	Examples
Fresh	• Unripened • Milky, mild or slightly tart flavor	Fresh Mozzarella, Ricotta, Mascarpone
Soft ripened or bloomy rind	• Surface ripened • Usually sprayed with mold to develop the typical thin, velvety ("bloomy") crust • Soft, creamy texture	Brie, Camembert
Washed rind	Washed during ripening with brine, wine or spirits	Taleggio
Firm to semi-firm pressed: Mountain cheeses	• Made in the Alps where cows graze on lush pasturage • Classic melting cheeses • Dense, smooth texture • Can be aged for months or years	Fontina, Gruyere
Hard aged	• "Cheddaring" process involves repeated pressing and fine milling of curds • Typical, firm dense texture	English Cheddar (i.e. Cotswold with chives)
Sheep's milk	• Many different styles	Manchego, Idiazabal
Goat's milk	• Many different styles: Fresh to aged, mild to sharp • Often tangy	Chevre, Humboldt Fog
Blue	• Inoculated with blue molds • Many different styles: Creamy to crumbly, mild to very sharp	Stilton, Gorgonzola, Roquefort

Popular sellers

Cheese	Region	Type	Milk
Cotswold with chives	England	Semi-firm	Pasteurized cow
Manchego D.O.	Spain	Firm	Raw sheep
Fougerous Coulommiers	France	Bloomy	Pasteurized cow
Goot Essa Cheddar	Pennsylvania	Semi-firm	Cow
Taleggio	Italy	Washed rind	Pasteurized cow
Ossau-Iraty Brebis	France	Semi-firm	Pasteurized cow

River City Cellars' staff picks

Cheese	Region	Type	Milk
Caromount "Old Green Mountain" Chevre	Esmont, Va.	Fresh	Pasteurized goat, rolled in herbs grown at the dairy
Delice de Bourgogne	Burgundy, France	Bloomy (triple cream)	Pasteurized cow
Idiazabal	Spain (Basque region)	Firm	Raw sheep
Cypress Grove Midnight Moon	Holland (by way of California)	Hard	Pasteurized goat