[imagesource: Quesos y Besos]

I remember a time in the early 2000s when random internet humour was just about becoming a thing.

My friends and I would relish this new humour by saying “cheese” at random times, thinking it to be the most hilarious thing since sliced bread.

Little did we know that cheese was actually a very serious conversation in some parts of the world.

Some even went so far as to name the world’s most dangerous cheese. Be warned, maggots are involved.

In a more pleasant cheese conversation comes the World Cheese Awards.

Organised by The Guild of Fine Food, it has brought together professionals dedicated to cheese for decades.

Out of 4 079 entries from more than 40 countries on five continents, the 33rd edition of the World Cheese Awards was held on Wednesday, naming just one winner.

A delightfully soft goat’s cheese from an artisan cheesemaker in Spain.

The winning cheese, called Olavidia by the brand Quesos y Besos (Cheeses and Kisses), scored 103 votes from judges at the event.

Second place was close behind with 98 votes – a soft cheese from France’s Fromagerie Berthaut washed with Marc de Bourgogne’s spirit.

CNN notes that it had been ahead until the very last minute:

A British judge, Jason Hinds, told fellow judges on the panel just before they voted that the goat’s cheese had a “rich, seductive, creamy texture” and “a flavor that was round and warm.”

“I just wanted to go to bed with it,” Hinds added, with a grin, at the ceremony livestreamed by the organizers from Spain’s northern city of Oviedo.

One of the owners of the winning cheese, Silvia Pelaez, said that they are small humble cheesemakers in a Spanish city best known for its olives.

The cheese does in fact give a nod to the poplar olives by being “matured with penicillium candidum and olive stone ash”.

It is this ash that gives the cheese its noticeable black stripe:

Image: Quesos y Besos

The cheeses were judged by 250 judges, including food scientists, cheese sellers, chefs, and sommeliers.

The competition kicked off at 88 tables in a large conference hall with three judges sitting at each, ready to taste and rate around 45 kinds of cheese in front of them.

The judgement process went as follows:

They focused on the “look, feel, smell and taste of each entry, scoring aspects such as the appearance of the rind and paste, as well as the cheese’s aroma, body and texture, with the majority of points awarded for flavor and mouthfeel,” the organization’s website said.

That narrowed the field to 88, or one “big cheese” per table. The 88 semi-finalists later gave way to just 16 finalists. Their fate was decided by a so-called “super jury” of 16 judges who have no commercial link to the producers of these cheeses, the organization said.

In the final round of the judging, each of the 16 judges spoke about one cheese, lauding its characteristics, and then all 16 judges tasted that same cheese, and voted by raising cards bearing a number, on a 1 to 10 scale, assigning points to that cheese, in plain view of an auditorium audience. The same method was then used for the other 15 finalists.

Quesos y Besos’ goat’s cheese won the day, titled the “world champion cheese”, according to John Farrand, managing director of the UK-based Guild of Fine Food.

Cheese.

[source:cnn]