By Janet Fletcher

For a specialty food retailer with a cheese counter, the end-of-year holidays spell opportunity. Customers are more willing to splurge—both with money and calories—and they’re looking to cheese for easy answers to their entertaining and gift-giving needs. If you provide the solutions, you’ll make the sale.

As you strategize your holiday cheese purchasing, make sure you have the following eight categories in stock:

Truffled cheeses: These aromatic products sell year-round in some markets, but sales spike at holiday time. Offer multiple options: a truffled goat cheese, such as the petite Capra Cremosa con Tartufo Nero from Piemonte; a truffled Tuscan pecorino; the truffled Fin Briard or Brillat-Savarin, both cow’s milk cheese from France; or the highly scented Sottocenere, a raw cow’s milk cheese from northern Italy laced with black truffles. Remind shoppers—verbally or with signage—how easy it is to make a glamorous hors d'oeuvre by melting truffled cheese on toast or a crusty square of polenta.

Triple crèmes: What festive beverage flows at holiday parties? Champagne, of course. And what cheeses go best with sparkling wine? Many would give the nod to triple crèmes, those luscious cream-enriched cheeses that coat the palate, like Pierre Robert, Jean Grogne, Explorateur and Brillat-Savarin. Domestically, Marin French Cheese Company’s triple-crème Brie has a similarly sexy flavor profile. Use signage to suggest the sparkling wine marriage, or create a gift basket with a whole triple crème, crackers and a bottle of bubbly.

Splurges: The costly cheeses that make people flinch in July become affordable indulgences in December. Be sure to have choices for people who want that “wow” factor, or you’ll be leaving money on the table. Consider Vacherin du Haut Jura or L’Edel de Cléron from France, or the equally unctuous Torta del Casar or Queso de la Serena from Spain. Dramatic cheeses all, they make an impression at a dinner party when served whole or scooped from the container with a spoon. Brescianella Acquavite, a cow’s milk cheese from Lombardy coated in grape must, has a big flavor and a bigger price, but its eye appeal and distinctiveness will make it move at the holidays.

Traditions: Cheddar and Stilton are holiday must-haves, but other cheeses speak to tradition in some families. In a Yorkshire home, Wensleydale accompanies fruitcake, according to Kathleen Shannon Finn of Columbus Distributing in Hayward, Calif. You may not have a single customer from Yorkshire, but you can still introduce this delicious custom. (All those Stilton and Port devotees aren’t British, after all.) For Stilton enthusiasts, consider offering miniature wheels weighing about 21¼2 pounds. “The clincher is that they’re fully rinded and perfect for a party,” says Cheryl Sullivan, an account manager with Crystal Foods in Lynn, Mass. “They make a beautiful presentation.”

If you have shoppers of Italian heritage, you’ll want to have fresh ricotta on hand for homemade cannoli and cassata and other Italian Christmas specialties. Sullivan says smoked scamorza and caciocavallo in the shape of pigs or other whimsical creatures are popular among Italians at holiday time and can be ordered in custom shapes. Equally fun and festive, she adds, and likely to become a tradition for all who try it is manteca, a butter-stuffed caciocavallo from Italy. Cut in half to expose the butter, manteca would be a conversation piece on a party buffet.

Presentation cheeses: For home entertaining or gift-giving, shoppers look for cheese with aesthetic value, says Raymond Hook, a former retailer who now works with distributor Cheese Works West in Alameda, Calif. He recommends “small, pretty cheeses,” like leaf-wrapped banons or edible flower-coated chèvres. Harley Farms, the California goat cheese producer, makes decorated chèvres with holiday flavors, such as Cranberry-Walnut or Apricot-Pistachio. Let your customers know these eye-catching cheeses can be ordered in large sizes for parties.

You may sell mascarpone-based tortas all year, but you’ll sell a lot more in November and December. These sliceable creations—layered with everything from pesto to brandied prunes—seem tailor-made for buffets and office parties. Cross-merchandise with housemade croutons and olives (for savory tortas) or dried fruits and candied nuts (for sweet tortas). The sumptuous tortas from Peck in Milan are the originals and, some say, still the best, but the many copycat versions are more affordable. Keep themcold and cut them with a cheese wire.

Consider introducing your customers to baked ricotta from Italy, a beautiful, sliceable, molded cheese with a golden surface. Lightly sweetened and flavored with lemon, orange, almond or chocolate, the baked ricotta can be cut into wedges for dessert, with poached pears or a shower of grated bittersweet chocolate.

Many retailers do well with Bries filled and decorated with seasonal ingredients, such as dried cranberries and pecans. The cheese is halved horizontally, the filling arranged on the cut surface—sometimes with a layer of cream cheese to hold the ingredients in place—and the top half repositioned. Finn recommends decorating the surface of 1-kilo Bries with edible flowers and overwrapping them with plastic to sell whole as a party centerpiece.

“It’s presenting solutions for the consumer,” says Finn. “If I go to the case and see this Brie that has dried cranberries and walnuts in it, I think I need that for my Thanksgiving table.”

Giftables: “One-pound cloth-wrapped cheddars are cool for a gift,” says Sullivan. “And Stilton in crocks is huge. I put them in stockings every year.” Look for small-format cheeses, nicely packaged, at an appropriate price point for a house gift. Waxed cheeses from top producers like Grafton Village and Cabot Creamery can go in gift baskets and are easily shipped. Finn encourages her retail customers to overwrap 1-kilo Bries with cellophane and attach a recipe for baked Brie with a festive ribbon.

Grab and go: Do you have options for the shopper who is having a dozen people over and doesn’t have time for a consultation? Finn suggests a grab-and-go cheese course—perhaps three complementary cheeses on a black tray with crackers, a fruit garnish and a domed lid. “Take all the thought out of it,” urges Finn. “Commit to the sale and put it out there.”

Add-ons: Don’t forget all the goodies that make a cheese into a cheese course (and a bigger sale for you): truffle honey for blue cheeses; aged balsamic vinegar for drizzling on Parmigiano Reggiano; fig cakes and Marcona almonds for Spanish cheeses; mostarda for Italian cheeses. Sullivan’s new favorite for cheese trays: plump California golden raisins sun-dried on the stem. “They’re an awesome thing,” she says. “You pop the package open and you’re garnished.”

Janet Fletcher is a staff writer for The San Francisco Chronicle and author of The Cheese Course.