A year ago this kind of session would have happened in a rented room with a cheese board and a row of poured glasses. This year it happens over a video call, and members have told us more than once that they miss the room. What they don't say is that they miss the content — attendance at our virtual sessions has held up better than almost anyone expected, and next Tuesday's webinar on pairing cheese with cider is shaping up to be one of the fuller ones on the winter calendar.
Other trade groups have found the same thing running virtual tasting programs this year: a well-run remote session, with the right materials in front of people ahead of time, holds attention in a way a straight lecture never did. We've leaned into that lesson since last spring, and it shows in how these sessions are built now.
What's actually covered
This isn't a tasting-for-its-own-sake session. The pairing logic is the point: how carbonation and acidity in a cider interact with a washed-rind's funk versus a clean alpine style, and why a sweeter cider can flatten a sharp cheddar instead of complementing it. If you sell cheese alongside a beverage program, or you're building a tasting menu for a shop or a farmers' market table, this is the kind of session that turns into a sell sheet by the following week.
We've also built in time for retail-specific questions — how to build a pairing display without a full bar setup, and what actually moves product when a customer is standing at a case deciding between two wedges. That part tends to run long, and we've learned to plan for it. January's dairy-case numbers have been stronger than usual across the category, with more shoppers making dedicated trips for cheese rather than picking it up as an afterthought — which makes this a good moment to be thinking hard about what sits next to your case, not just what's in it.
Getting the most out of a virtual session
A few things members have told us make these sessions land better:
- Have your own product on hand if you can. Pairing theory is more useful when you're tasting alongside it, even if your setup is a kitchen counter instead of a conference room.
- Send questions ahead of time if you have a specific pairing problem — a stubborn inventory line, a customer request you can't quite answer. We build a few minutes for those into every session when we can.
- Treat the chat, not just the presenter, as part of the session. Some of the sharpest tips we've heard this winter came from a member typing a quick answer to another member's question while the presentation was still running.
- If Tuesday doesn't work, register anyway. We've been recording sessions and sending them out within a few days, which has turned out to be one of the better habits this year forced on us.
It's a smaller thing than a full conference, and we know some members are counting the months until an in-person one comes back on the calendar. In the meantime, an hour with a good cider list and a plate of cheese in front of your own screen is not a bad way to spend a Tuesday. Registration is open now through the events page, and a recording will follow for anyone who can't make the live session.
The International Cheese Federation (ICF) and More Cheese are entirely fictional. This post is demonstration content created for MemberJunction. All people, organizations, events, courses, certifications, figures, and quotations in it are invented, and nothing here represents a real association, a real business, a real person, or real professional advice.