Last month saw cheese experts from around the globe descend on the beautiful Italian town of Bergamo for the World Cheese Awards 2019, the largest international cheese competition in the world, organised by the Guild of Fine Food. The awards, which have been running for 32 years, celebrate the very best cheeses and this year saw 3,804 cheeses entered from 42 nations.
Curd & Cure’s Stuart, Olivia and Christopher joined the international panel of judges, made up of 260 cheese buyers, makers, retailers and food writer, from 35 different countries and took part in the judging on Friday 18th October 2019.
Each judge is allocated a table of approximately 40 cheeses from a mix of classes to taste alongside two fellow judges. There are strict guidelines to ensure that each cheese is being judged as consistently and fairly as possible, giving a simple but thorough scoring system to work to.
The key fundamental elements of the assessment fall under four categories:
Visual – Colour, consistency and presence of any defects, including evaluating both the rind and the paste of the cheese
Body & texture – looking at whether the quality and characteristics of the cheese match those of its style & make
Aroma – whether the cheese has the characteristic expected of the style & make, with no off notes
Flavour & mouthfeel – the most important element of the judging, with the highest points rating. Assessing the complexity and balance of the cheese, the mouth feel & length of finish
Each of the above are scored, with the overall score giving an indication of whether the cheese should be awarded a bronze, silver, gold or no award and each decision has to be unanimous. The final part of the judging is deciding on the table’s Super Gold, the very best cheese out of all that have been tasted. This is then put forward to the super jury, a panel of 16 judges who each choose one cheese to champion as the Supreme Champion.
This year, for the first time ever, there was a tie in points, and so chairman of the judges, Nigel Barden, took the final decision and Rogue Creamery’s Rogue River Blue, produced in Oregon, was declared the World Champion Cheese 2019, making another first for the competition, being the first ever American winner.
Overall, just 84 super golds were awarded, including 2 for cheeses stocked by Curd & Cure; High Weald Dairy’s Brighton Blue and Two Hoots Cheese’s Barkham Blue. These join over 30 cheeses available via Curd & Cure awarded Gold, Silver & Bronze. A special congratulations go to our local cheesemakers Winterdale cheesemakers, who were won awards for both their cheeses.
If you would like to find out more about stocking some of this year’s award-winners please do get in touch and we can supply a full list and help choose a selection tailored to your needs.
