Chevre is French for Goat’s cheese i.e. cheeses made out of goat’s milk. They are popular among elderly and children who are more likely to show low tolerance to cow’s milk. Also, goat cheeses are lower in fat, and higher in vitamin A and potassium. They serve as a perfect substitute for many dieters. A majority of goat cheeses come from France, the most famous among them being Bucheron, Chabis and Crottin de Chavignol.
Goat cheeses have a unique, tart, earthy flavour that sets them apart from cow cheeses. This distinctive tang and aroma grows robust and bold as it ages. Milk production of goats, unlike of cow’s, is seasonal from mid-March through October. Only a few cheeses are aged beyond four months and they cannot be frozen without loss of quality. Considering the availability of limited milk production, experiments are on to make cheeses from frozen goat milk curd.
The flavour and aroma of goat cheese relies upon its moisture, density, aging and flavouring. It can feature a soft, semisoft, firm, or hard texture that indicates its moisture content. They come in many sizes and shapes, such as round patties, log-shapes, drum-shapes, pyramids, round loaves, long loaves etc. Chevres are excellent dessert cheeses, often served as snacks or before dinner drinks.

Chevre

The Manchego is produced in the La Mancha region of Spain, which is also home to Don Quixote. It is made from unpasteurised sheep's milk. It is one of the popular cheeses from Spain, made from sheep's milk. It also comes under the PDO guidelines.

The traditional use of grass moulds leaves a distinctive, characteristic zigzag pattern on the Manchego cheese. Authentic Manchego is only made from the Manchego sheep's milk. Manchego cheese is made from both pasteurised and unpasteurised milk. The farmhouse version is produced from unpasteurised milk while the industrial version is produced from pasteurised milk.
The rind is inedible with a distinctive, traditional herringbone basket weave pattern, pressed on it. A typical ear wheat pattern is pressed onto the top and bottom wheels of the cheese. There are specific differences in Manchego cheeses, depending on their aging period.

Semi Curado - Young Manchego cheese is aged around 3 months are supple and moist. The flavour is fruity, grass, hay with a tangy note.
Curado - Manchego cheese aged for 6 months acquires a caramel and nutty flavour. It has distinct acidity.
Viejo - Manchego cheese aged for a year becomes crumbly in texture while the interior of the cheese acquires a butterscotch colour. It has a sweet, lingering taste.
Manchego cheeses are best paired with a sherry. Cheeses similar to Manchego are called 'Machego like cheeses', but the producers cannot legally name the cheese as Manchego.

This celebrated cheese has won gold and silver award at the 2014 World Cheese Awards.

Manchego

Queso Manchego DOP

Brunost also known as mysost (Norwegian), mesost (Swedish), meesjuusto (Finnish), mysuostur (Icelandic), myseost (Danish), Braunkäse (German).
The Norwegian and German names mean brown cheese while others translated simply mean ‘whey cheese’. The most commonly exported varieties of Brunost are Geitost which is made with a mixture of goats and cow's milk, Ekte Geitost made with goat’s milk only, and Gudbrandsdalsost.
Brunost is a sweet, dense caramelized brown Scandinavian whey cheese produced under different names in various countries. The cheese gets its brown colour and fudge like texture from the slow simmering process which allows the milk sugars to caramelize. A low-fat variant is made by increasing the proportion of whey to milk and cream.
Brunost is served thinly sliced on rye toast or crisp bread. It is considered healthy because of its high content of iron, calcium and B vitamins.

Brunost

Tine

Emborg Camembert

Marie Harel created the original Camembert cheese from raw milk in Normandy, France in 1791. Today, however, a very small percentage of producers make cheese from raw milk with the same process as Marie Harel would have used. Those who produce cheese using Marie Harel's method, can legally call their cheese "Camembert de Normandie" under the AOC guidelines. However, the production of Camembert cheese has now transcended the AOC designation. Very good varieties of Camembert cheese made from pasteurised milk can be found in Normandy today.

Fresh Camembert cheese is bland, hard and crumbly in texture. Young Camembert has a milky and sweet taste. As the cheese matures it forms a smooth, runny interior and a white bloomy rind that is typical of Camembert cheese. It has a rich, buttery flavour. The rind is bloomy white caused by a white fungus, called Penicillium candidum.The rind is meant to be eaten with the cheese.

This cheese is best paired with a light red wine such as Beaujolais, Chenin Blanc, St Emilion, St Estephe, or traditionally a glass of Normandy cider.

Camembert

Fiore Sardo DOP also known as Pecorino Sardo is a raw, hard cheese made from whole sheep’s milk on the Italian island of Sardinia. The cheese which is said to have originated during Bronze Age was awarded DOP status in 1996.
As per DOP standards, the cheese is made with milk sourced from a single flock of local Sardinian breed. Nowadays, there are industrial versions where a blend of cow's and sheep's milk or even pasteurised milk is used to prepare Fiore Sardo.
The cheese, after a total aging of six months, has a natural, golden-yellow to dark brown rind and a sour, damp smell. Upon slicing, the pate reveals a compact, dense, straw yellow or white colour. It is wonderfully rich in flavour, with caramel sweetness, salty tang and a hint of fruit. The spicy flavour of the cheese intensifies depending on the length of maturation.
Less aged Fiore Sardo pairs well with young red wines such as Cannonau di Sardegna DOC while matured version could be served with Malvasia di Bosa or Moscato di Sorso Sennori.

Fiore Sardo

From Italy, comes Quartirolo Lombardo, a PDO (Protected Designation of Origin) cheese associated with the Stracchino family of cheeses. The PDO designation requires the production area of the cheese be limited to specific part of Lombardy, sandwiched between the Po plain and the pre-Alpine valleys between Bergamo and Lecco.This old cheese belonging to the 9th century is produced with cow's milk and shaped in square or rectangular bricks. It is soft, white, chalky with a slight lumpy texture that softens as the cheese ripens.

The colour of the pate is white to pale straw, which will darken upon ripening. The thin and soft rind is pinkish white when young, turning a reddish gray-green on the aged ones. Quartirolo Lombardo is ripened between 5 to 30 days for soft PDO Quartirolo Lombardo and more than 30 days for Ripe PDO Quartirolo Lombardo. The taste is distinctive, slightly sour and aromatic in the fresh cheeses, which intensifies as the cheese ages. The delicate and fragrant flavour of the younger days becomes stronger and typically aromatic upon ripening.Quartirolo Lombardo is a typical table cheese that goes well with salads, cold dishes, fruits, walnuts and honey. It goes well with many local wines including Barbera d'Alba, Dolcetto delle Langhe, Nebbiolo d'Alba, and Pinot Bianco del Collio.

Quartirolo Lombardo

Meaning "sweet" in Italian, Gorgonzola "Dolce" DOP is a soft, blue, buttery cheese made with uncooked cow's whole milk. The cheese took its name from a small town in Lombardy near Milan, where it said to have been born in the 12th century. It has a white or pale yellow, buttery and melty paste speckled with a homogeneous distribution of blue coloured veins. The rind is compact, rough, hard and grey/pinkish in colour but not edible. Flavours are not very assertive but sweet, mild with notes of sour cream and lactic tang. It takes a minimum of 50 days ageing to let Gorgonzola demonstrate its unique characteristics.  The cheese pairs well with a Tuscan Vin Santo and Champagne.
Gorgonzola Dolce DOP from Arrigoni Battista Spa recently won Super Gold at the 2014 World Cheese Awards and was also judged as one of the world’s 62 best cheeses.

Gorgonzola Dolce DOP

Arrigoni

Montasio is a creamery, unpasteurised cow’s milk cheese originating from the Friuli Venezia Giulia and Veneto provinces of Italy.
Awarded (PDO) protected designation of origin in 1986, this cheese is sold fresh, middle and aged depending on the aging time of 60 days up to 10 months. It was originally a monastery cheese but today it is produced only in a specific region of Italy following age-old traditional methods.
Montasio Vecchio aged over 12 months is dry and granular with bold, sharp taste. The paste is much crumblier and the characteristically “small” eyes are likely to disappear. Its straw yellow pate colour pate turns yellowish while the pale brown rind becomes hard with aging. The flavour is now pleasantly sharp, working excellently on pasta or rustic soups. It also complements corn polenta or classy meat dishes.

Montasio Vecchio

Toniolo Casearia s.p.a.

Montasio is a creamy, unpasteurised cow’s milk cheese originating from the Friuli Venezia Giulia and Veneto provinces of Italy.Awarded (PDO) protected designation of origin in 1986, this cheese is sold fresh, middle and aged depending on the aging time of 60 days up to 1 year. It was originally a monastery cheese but today it is produced only in a specific region of Italy following age-old traditional methods.Fresh Montasio or Montasio Fresco, aged between 60 and 120 days is soft, smooth and elastic with a mild creamy flavour. It has the characteristic “eyes” but not too many of them spread evenly throughout the cheese. The fresco variety reveals a harmonious, mild flavour heightened by the pleasant aroma.

Montasio

Old Amsterdam is an aged Gouda style cheese made from pasteurized cows milk. It is a Dutch cheese named after the capital city and the cheese is produced in the province of North Country in the west of the country.

It is aged for approximately two years and regularly checked during the ripening process. It is a quality controlled cheese and can only be sold when the cheeses meet the criteria and therefore is labeled with with "Premier Grand Cru Classé". It has tiny salt crystals which form naturally and give added flavor and texture to the dense body.

Old Amsterdam has an ivory colored pate with rich, nutty, robust flavor with hints of caramel and butterscotch and firm texture.

Old Amsterdam

This soft cheese is distinguished by its shape, similar to that of pebbles bordering the banks of the Loire.

Like the Tuffeau stone, which forms the facades of the chateaux of the Loire, the crust of the Loire Valley is ivory and can become straw yellow when refining is pushed. Its paste is creamy and reveals a typical taste as well as an important diversity of aromas, sometimes mushroom, sometimes stable.

Galet de la Loire

Fromage d'Anjou

Sakura is a soft cheese created in Hokkaido, Japan. It is the first widely acclaimed Japanese cheese, as the vast majority of cheeses in general were a European/Mediterranean phenomenon.

It has the rare distinction of winning a gold medal at the Mountain Cheese Olympics in Appenzell, Switzerland, which normally favors Swiss, Italian, or French cheeses almost exclusively for awards.

Yuri

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