Wednesday, July 6, 2011

Blauschimmelkäse, A Swiss Gem From the Bad Tölz Festival

Actually, Blauschimmelkäse just means blue (mold) cheese in German, and so the name applies to countless Blue cheeses and not just today's. However, in my excitement to have bought it and having learned the bare facts about how it was made I promptly ran off like a kid on Christmas and forgot to ask the name of the dairy or the name of the cheese. Hopefully this will be fixed soon. In the meantime: cheese!
Origin: Switzerland
Milk: Cow, unpasteurized
Rennet: Animal
Affinage: 8 months
Notes: Uses Penicillium Roqueforti to achieve it's intense veining, bathed in cherry schnapps during the aging process. 
Thoughts: Despite the frankly rather frightening lookings molding; few and spaced apart but ferocious in their intensity and coloring, this is not a tastebud-annihilating Blue. The flavor comes on slowly and builds throughout the course of the bite, but more like my favorite Rogue River, it has chosen to go for complexity of flavor with a solid bite rather than pushing the boundaries of spicy blue burns. The nutty, sweet, salty paste carries through with a very strong but reserved creaminess while the sharp blue notes pierce through now and again to remind the eater that mold has been at work. On top of that an extra sweetness from the schnapps bath adds yet another layer of delicious complexity. A really smooth flavor with a perfectly measured crunch from the veining and an aftertaste that drops by for one more kick from the blue, burning feeling make for an outstanding blue, one I would recommend to anyone and am fortunate to have gotten a hold of.


Caution
If you find yourself with a newly purchased piece of truly delicious cheese and your first thought is not "when can I eat this" but rather "I wonder what kind of rennet they used..." then you might be a cheese addict. 

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