The beginning of November is a very important time in the cheese world as it marks the judging of the World Cheese Awards. This year the Awards were held in Bergen, Norway, as part of a new food festival, Matnasjonen Norge, and Ali and I were both delighted to be asked to be judges. I love going to these events, not just because it’s a real honour to be asked to be a judge, but also because it’s a chance to see and taste new cheeses as well as catching up with all the wonderful people in the cheese world. Everyone involved in cheese is so friendly and we all have so much to talk about with each other. There’s no cut-throat politics going on, everyone is keen to help each other and to promote all cheese, not just their own particular favourites. Cheese is such a phenomenal product and it is truly mind blowing to think that all of the cheeses entered into the World Cheese Awards simply started off as a vat of milk. I just love it!

This year there were a record breaking 3500 cheeses entered into the awards, ranging from small, soft, fresh cheeses to large wheels of parmigiano reggiano, all of which were being judged by 235 judges from around the world. All the cheeses are split out over 78 different tables. Each table is then judged by a team of 3 judges who award bronze, silver & gold awards to the best cheeses that they taste. My particular table this year had a real mix of different cheese. We had some goat, some blue, some hard, some flavoured and some smoked cheeses so my taste buds got a real workout! Once all the cheeses on your table have been given a score you then have to work out which is the very best cheese and that then gets given a super gold award and is sent through to the second round of judging. All 78 of the super gold cheeses are tasted by a team of 16 judges and they have to whittle them down to the top 16. These 16 then go through to the televised final where they are given a score out of 80. It’s an extremely thorough process and the cheese that comes out on top at the end of it really deserves to be the best cheese in the world.

The winning cheese this year didn’t have to travel very far as it came from Bergen! The delicious Fanaost is an aged gouda style cheese and it is made by Jørn Hafslund. Jørn only has 12 cows on his farm so he has to buy in supplies of local milk in order to make the large wheels of cheese. Norway have had 2 supreme champions at the World Cheese Awards in the last 3 years and when asked what made Norwegian cheese so good Gunnar Waagen who won in 2016 replied “it is because of the fantastic quality of our milk, which is probably the best in the world”. Few of us who were in Bergen at the beginning of the month would disagree. I would love to be able to report that we have the Fanaost in stockout but unfortunately they don’t make very much of it and so it is unusual to find it outside of Norway. I will do my utmost to track some down and if I mange it you will all be the first to know…