Here is the great lie of the cheeseboard: that it wants a big red wine. We have all been taught it, we all nod along, and most of us have spent years quietly wondering why the pairing so often falls flat. The truth, which every sommelier knows and almost no dinner party admits, is that cheese and tannin are frequently at war. Work out what wine actually goes with cheese and the end of a meal is never quite the same again.

It helps to know why the myth persists. A great red and a great cheese are both things we reach for when we want to show off, so they end up on the table together and we assume they must belong together. Sometimes they do. But cheese is fundamentally a study in fat, salt and acidity, and the wines that flatter those things are usually lighter, brighter, fizzier or sweeter than the brooding bottle you were about to open. The trick is to match the wine to the cheese in front of you, not to a vague idea of specialness. So here is the board, style by style, and what to pour alongside each.

Soft and bloomy: Brie, Camembert, the oozy ones

Start with the crowd-pleasers. A ripe Brie or a spoonable Camembert is all butter and mushroom and cream, and what it wants is not weight but contrast: something with acidity and bubbles to cut through the richness and reset the palate between bites. This is Champagne's home turf. The scrub of fine bubbles against all that fat is one of the great pairings in the business, and it works with almost anything soft. R de Ruinart is a lovely place to begin, a Chardonnay-led house style with exactly the freshness these cheeses beg for. A good English sparkling does the same job with a little more orchard-fruit brightness. Either way the rule is simple: creamy cheese, crisp fizz, and let them get on with it.

Fresh and tangy: goat's cheese and the young things

Young goat's cheese, feta, a squeaky ball of mozzarella: these are all about lactic tang and a chalky freshness, and they have one near-perfect partner. Sauvignon Blanc, all cut grass and gooseberry and zip, mirrors that tang so precisely that the Loire built an entire reputation on the match. Mahi Marlborough Sauvignon Blanc brings the New World version, riper and more exuberant but with the acidity fully intact, and against a fresh chevre it is almost uncanny how neatly the two lock together. What grows together goes together, the old line runs, and here it is doing real work.

Hard and aged: Cheddar, Comte, Manchego, the serious wedges

Now, at last, the reds get their moment, though not the ones you might have expected. A properly aged hard cheese has turned nutty, crystalline and savoury, and that flavour suits a red with earth and structure rather than sweet, jammy fruit. A Tempranillo from Ribera del Duero, all tobacco and dried cherry and a bit of Spanish dust, sits in exactly the right register. Valdaya's Ribera del Duero does it beautifully, savoury rather than showy, the kind of red that meets a mature Cheddar or a hunk of Manchego on level terms. If you want to go properly off-piste, a dry oloroso sherry against aged Comte is one of the quiet miracles of the pairing world. Save that one for the guest who thinks they have tried everything.

Blue: Stilton, Roquefort, the ones with attitude

And then the blues, which break every rule and are the reason the sweet wines exist. Blue cheese is salt and funk and a slap of ammonia, and the only thing that truly tames it is sugar. The contrast of sweet against savoury is not a compromise, it is the entire point: each makes the other taste better. The British answer is Pedro Ximenez or a tawny port, thick and raisined, poured against a wedge of Stilton until the evening goes soft at the edges. The French answer is Sauternes with Roquefort, or a noble-rot Tokaji with almost any blue you care to name, the honeyed sweetness wrapping around the salt like a scarf. It is the pairing that converts sceptics. Serve it once and someone will go quiet, then ask what on earth they are drinking.

Two bottles, one very good board

A word on building the thing itself. You do not need a different wine for every cheese, which way lies madness and a genuinely expensive evening. Pick two. Something sparkling or crisp and white to carry the soft and fresh end, and one more characterful bottle, a savoury red or a sweet wine, for the aged and the blue. Between them they will cover almost anything a cheesemonger can put in front of you. And if you are only opening one, make it fizz. Champagne is the diplomat of the cheeseboard, the bottle that finds something kind to say to every guest.

The rules, kept short

If you remember nothing else: bubbles and fresh whites love soft and young cheeses; savoury reds suit the aged and the hard; sweet wines are for blue, always. Match the weight of the wine to the weight of the cheese, let acidity and sweetness do the heavy lifting rather than tannin, and lean on the old truth that things from the same place tend to get along. The same instincts that steer a good Sunday roast pairing or the right bottle for game apply here too, just pointed at the cheese trolley instead.

The cheeseboard, then, is not the place for your biggest, most serious red. It is the place for curiosity: a glass of something bright, a pour of something sweet, and the small thrill of watching two flavours you would never have introduced turn out to be old friends. Put down the Cabernet. Reach for the bubbles, or the honey in a bottle. The cheese will thank you.