The World Championships of Cheese

A delicious and sometimes pungent event. November 2022 Newsletter

“Smells like a potty,” said one cheese maker and judge at the World Cheese Awards. There was more than one off-putting smell among the 4,434 cheeses submitted to the prestigious competition. Some entries sent acidic puffs of ammonia aloft, others were redolent with notes of nuts and caramel. Surrounded by cheese, it’s impossible not to come to your senses.

And if you haven’t yet arrived with all your senses, there’s a judges’ briefing to help novices learn how to awaken their sense of cheese. I attended the briefing and the awards and discovered a range of descriptors to assist judges as they try to express the nature and quality of a cheese. On a simple level, cheese can taste “sweet, savory, salty, acid, bitter.” On a more complex level, a humble wedge of cheese can evoke salt water, seaweed, golden syrup, tropical fruit, hops, and pistachio oil. Sound like wine tasting?