Cheesemonger Tries 21 of the World's Most Expensive Cheeses

I'm third generation cheesemonger Adam Jay Moskowitz

and I'm about to try 21

of the world's most expensive cheeses.

Some of these have been coated in vegetable ash,

wrapped in syrah leaves,

or matured by the same family,

in the same Italian town since 1855.

But are these cheeses worth their hefty price tags?

Oh yeah,

absolutely, yes.

And I'm gonna show you why.

[upbeat music]

Pleasant Ridge Reserve.

This cheese is made from Uplands Creamery

in a place called Wisconsin.

This cheese has won more awards

than any other cheese in America.

This cheese is one of the few American cheese

that have been exported to Europe.

That's mind blowing,

'cause Europeans don't even know we have raw milk cheese.

These cheese can only be made at certain times of the year,

because it has to be off of pastures.

But this cheese is raw milk, farmstead,

which means the person actually milking the animals,

also making the cheese and that is a very difficult job.

This cheese is also extra aged.

Extra age means more work,

more money.

When the cheese is being aged also it's losing its moisture

and if you're losing moisture you're losing weight,

and if you're losing weight, that's money.

This cheese is expensive,

because there's so much work put into this cheese.

Natural rind.

Ooh, spicy. Has a damp note.

It also has animal-y note like if you were riding a horse.

Wow.

So with extra age, I always get nervous

that it might be too salty.

It's not.

Because salt is such a key ingredient of cheese,

if you extra age the cheese,

sometimes the salt just becomes very forward.

So the fact that this cheese is extra aged

and yet it's not coming off salty,

is just a true testament to how balanced

and well crafted This cheese is.

Belper Knolle.

Belper Canole is a Swiss version of a truffle,

made out of cow's milk cheese.

This cheese is made with pure unadulterated raw milk.

This is coming straight from the cow,

which means you're getting the truest essence

of what milk is supposed to taste like.

The natural modes and bacterias are in play.

The natural enzymes are occurring.

They take a raw cow's milk,

they speckle it with garlic,

they roll it in black pepper

and then age it until it's super dry

and you would never believe this is cheese.

It kind of looks like a cinnamon munchkin.

There's nothing that exists like this anywhere.

So this cheese, you don't cut into,

this cheese you shave.

Oh my god.

You get spicy black pepper, a sniff of garlic,

and then the punch of raw cow's milk.

Super bright, super lactic.

I basically want to shave this on everything I eat.

Lesbos Feta.

This is special because it's actually

made from lesbian sheep.

A breed of sheep, has nothing to do with their sexuality.

And so cheese is made of milk,

starter culture, rennet and salt.

And this salt is coming from a 400 year old reservoir,

which makes it super special.

Everybody knows the word feta.

What you don't know that some people are making feta

as traditional as it can be made.

When a cheese is super acidified, it gets super crumbly

and that's what's happened here.

That's the essence of feta.

Sound weird, it smells like salad.

It's got like this vinegar note,

which makes sense given the acidity of it.

It's also bright. It's got like this fruity note.

So this to me is what feta is supposed to taste like.

Feta is not just supposed to be a texture,

it's not supposed to just be this,

like this dry crumbly cheese.

It's supposed to have a kick.

The sheep note's there, but it's underneath.

Sometimes with sheep's milk cheese,

it kind of gets in your face.

That's not here. It's underneath.

It's there, but it's subtle.

The salt is from a 400 year old reservoir,

but it's not up top.

It's in the middle.

Everything is just really harmonious.

This cheese travels in a pool of brine

and by doing so, it holds its moisture versus

a feta that just is vacuum sealed,

therefore it just dries out.

The craftmanship here is through the roof.

Eidolon.

This is farmstead cows milk cheese from Martha's Vineyard.

It lives where most people vacation.

This cheese is a young cheese,

meaning it's only been made for about 10 years.

One of the interesting things about a cheese of this size

is it's an homage to how cheese was made

way back in the day, by dairy maids,

meaning by hand.

All right, so this smells like a cellar.

By a cellar, I mean like a basement, which is a good thing.

I like that.

So affinage is a word I'm gonna use often.

Affinage is the aging of a cheese

and the rind development of a cheese.

Those happen at the same time.

Historically, cheese were aged in cellars, the basements.

Today, they're more aged in refrigerators

that are set up to mimic that.

So you could see the cream line,

where the paste meets the rind, which is the skin.

There's more activity,

creating more of that soft ripe and vibe near the rind.

And then as you get closer to the center, it gets more hard.

It's a little bit more sour

or a little bit more tart, which is high acidity.

It's a little boozy or yeasty

and it definitely has that cellar note.

Supporting farmstead cheese making

is the essential part of loving cheese.

So for that reason, I like this cheese.

Selles-sur-Cher.

This is a soft ripened geotrichum goats milk cheese,

made in France and then aged in New York City.

Geotrichum is a mold similar to the penicillium candidum,

that inspires the rind development,

which thus creates the flavor.

A tell for the geotrichum is wrinkles.

So if you've got a wrinkly cheese,

then it's probably a geotrichum cheese.

It's covered in ash, because historically,

they would use that to keep the flies away.

The ash comes from charred vegetables, grapevines and wood.

I could already feel that it's ooey gooey.

Wow.

So goat, historically for me,

is a bit of a scary milk to eat,

because like it can be kick you in the teeth.

This is so clean. This is so delicate.

It is lactic.

So you've got that like sour cream note to it,

but it's also vibrant, bright.

The texture is custardy, it's got this melted vibe,

Even though there's no heat.

This cheese is so worth the price,

because it is absolutely decadent.

It is very approachable.

It is so pleasing and appealing to the eye,

but then when you eat it, it is so balanced,

delicate and refined.

I could eat this whole thing by myself.

Torta del Casar.

This cheese is a raw sheep's milk cheese,

made from thistle rennet.

Rennet coagulates milk and a curd and whey.

And you need curd, 'cause curd becomes cheese.

This cheese is made from thistle rennet.

So they're using the plant thistle

to actually coagulate the milk.

Because no animals were hurt in the making of this cheese,

it's very popular among vegetarians.

This cheese is expensive because it's super unique.

Not a lot of cheese are made with thistle rennet.

It's not a lot of cheese are made like this in the world.

It's pudgy, it's squishy.

Little bit of a barnyard note

and it's also got that sheep note,

which is kind of like lanolin.

Typically with thistle rennet cheeses, for some reason,

it comes off way more sour, way more bright,

way more tart-y than normal cheeses.

Whoa-ha-ho.

All right ladies and gentlemen,

where at kick you in the teeth level flavor right now,

that is a bold big cheese.

It's boozy, it's got bite.

This tastes like I just took a sugar packet,

put it on top of a lime and then shoved the lime in my face.

Cheese is more intense by the rind,

because cheese is very impressionable.

It takes on the flavor characteristics

of the environment in which it's aged.

If you want a big bowl cheese

and also want it to be vegetarian,

this is a great cheese for you.

After Glow.

This is a geotrichum, wash rind cheese,

by Blakesville creamery.

Blakesville creamery is one of the hottest

up and coming cheese makers here in America.

This cheese is very limited in production.

This cheeses aged on a wire gate,

you can see the lines of the wire gate.

Why I bring this up,

because it means that this cheese was turned by hand.

This little deliciously special puck of cheese

was hand cared for, turned so ever delicately.

This is a wash rind, lactic cheese.

Lactic cheese typically comes across more sour,

but sour in the sense of brightness and mineral-ness.

This is an homage to a French cheese called Lagres,

and what they do is they actually

wash the cheese with a beer

and the yeast of the beer helps develop the rind

and fosters a very, very unique flavor.

It's got that goat note, almost smells like sour cream

and it's got a little bit of the cellar note.

You can look at this cheese

and think it's gonna be a soft ripened cheese

and be ooey gooey, but it's not.

Because it's a lactic cheese, the paste comes across firm.

If you look at the cream line,

you could actually see the rind development in action

and that rind is where flavor

is just magically going complex.

Light salt, cakey texture.

As I chew on it, it like almost like evaporates on my teeth.

Tempered, the goat is not kick you in the teeth.

That's why this cheese is so good.

This cheese maker is exquisite. Why is it expensive?

Because the person behind this cheese

knows what they're doing with goat's milk.

This is made from pasteurized goat's milk.

And the trick with pasteurization

is that when you heat the milk you're like scorching it,

which kills all the bad bacteria,

but it often kills all the good bacteria

and that's what flavor is.

To take a pasteurized milk

and then make a fully flavorful cheese,

means you gotta know what you're doing,

you gotta understand rind development

and that's what's happening here.

You get your hands on anything Blakesville makes,

you better just shove it in your face.

Don't share it with your friends.

Wrongeback.

Wrongeback is a raw milk farmstead cheese from Sweden,

which makes it very special.

Smells like chocolate, smells like cellar.

You can tell it's cow's milk because of the color.

Cow's milk is usually more yellow,

because it has carotene in it,

also because cows eat a lot of hay.

We can see tyrosine crystals.

The aging of cheese is the breakdown of

amino acids and fatty acids, protein and fat.

When the protein gets super broken down

and broken down and broken down, broken down,

what's ultimately left is tyrosine crystals.

Some people think it's salt, it's not,

it's distilled protein.

It's a hallmark of a cheese being aged.

A cheese being aged also is why it's expensive.

With a cheese like this,

I don't mind playing with it a little bit.

Generally speaking cheese,

you want to eat at room temperature.

So if a cheese in your touch feels a little bit

cool, just play with it, just move it around in your hand.

Off the nose, I get yogurt, I get potato, sour cream.

This texture I would say is,

it's a little bit like fudge,

it's also a little bit like wax.

This is made as an alpine style cheese in Sweden.

And by that I mean that salt is a key element

to how the cheese is actually made.

It sits in a brine tank, that salt kind of kicks in,

especially on the finish.

When I'm thinking about flavor,

I'm thinking of flavor at the attack,

which is the front, then the middle

and then the back and the back on this is super salty.

The name, Wrongeback,

was first registered in the late 1800s,

but in 2022 the cheese was awarded PDO status.

It is the only cheese from Sweden with a PDO status.

The family making this cheese has only,

in the last 20 years,

significantly invested in the cheese making facility

at their home.

And so we've got a family

that's been on this land for so long,

but is now super focused

on making a raw milk farmstead cheese.

And that's what makes this cheese so special.

There's really nothing like it in the world.

1605 Manchego.

Not regular Manchego, 1605 Manchego. Why?

Because this Manchego stands apart from Manchego.

Manchego is a term has been bastardized.

This 1605 Manchego, raw, sheep Manchego.

The calves are being born to mariachi music.

That's the type of care and consideration

that Cheesemaker is putting into this cheese.

That is not a story, that is a reality.

Natural rind.

Too often manchego is covered in wax, not this manchego.

When you seal a cheese and wax,

you're sealing in the flavor.

There's no more interaction with the outside world.

And it's the interaction with the outside world,

the environment which is being aged,

is what actually fosters complex flavor.

The nose, umami note, damp leaves on your knee.

So for this cheese, I'm first gonna try it in the center.

Milkshake, candy, little bright, little tart, salt low.

I have a very difficult time even calling this manchego,

'cause my perception of manchego

is not what this tastes like.

This is elegant, this is sexy, this is sophisticated.

So when you hear the word manchego,

often that cheese has been mass produced.

This cheese is not that.

1605 Manchego is limited production.

Handmade, natural rind, individually cared for,

this blows what you think is manchego out of the water.

Montgomery's Cloth Bound Cheddar.

We've all heard the term cheddar,

one of the most bastardized terms in cheese.

But this right here,

is one of the most originally, authentically,

truly made cheddars in the world.

It is wrapped in cloth and then wash with lard.

Lard is a natural preservative

protecting the cheese from unwanted bacteria.

However, it still allows all the magic of the molds

and the enzymes of the bacteria to thrive inside the cheese.

Cheddar is now a term that could be used

anywhere all the time.

It's often 40 pound blocks.

It almost doesn't mean anything anymore.

But this cheese maker wants it to mean something.

They're using raw milk,

they're using the cloth, the lard, it's round.

It is as authentic a cheddar as one could ask for or seek,

if you're interested in having a great cheddar.

Smells clean, got a little bit of a cellar note,

has a grassy vibe.

You can see these blue lines in the cheese,

that's actually blue mold.

But just to be very clear, I'm not afraid of this blue.

I'd eat it.

Herbacious, chives, endive, tart, a little salt heavy.

This is different than what you might find

in a supermarket, because of the its complexity.

It's both salt, it's both vegetal,

it's sour or tart and it is more wide and varied.

L'Etivaz.

L'Etivaz is a raw cow's milk cheese,

similar to like a Gruyère or Comte.

This cheese is as traditional a cheese

as one can find.

It also represents pastoral transhumance.

The cheese comes from Switzerland.

Basically this family takes its herd of cows

up into the Alps and then milks the animals

on top of a mountain,

and then makes the cheese from that milk.

What's awesome about that cheese is the

milk is put in a copper vat.

Copper vats hold heat extremely well

and allow for precise temperature monitoring and control.

The curd in the vat is cooked,

when the curds are taken out of the vat,

they're pressed, pressed, pressed,

literally putting a press, squeezing out the moisture,

which is why this cheese is so delicious,

because it can stand the test of time.

We got tyrosine crystals,

which shows that it's been aged.

The nose has like a petrol note.

Fruit, like stone fruit, pineapple,

got some funk,

crumbly in the mouth, has an airiness to it.

The salt is medium high,

got a tempered funk note,

like a horse, kind of like dancing, not like galloping.

And then that subtle petrol note,

which I love sometimes it feels like when I'm eating cheese

I'm huffing gas and I like it.

One way to think about cheese,

is that it's a flavor footprint of a specific place.

Like when you go up to the mountains,

the grass in those mountains

are growing in a much different way

than grass in Wisconsin.

This cheese is worth it,

because have you ever been to the top of a mountain?

How'd you feel? You felt amazing.

So how do you think the cows feel?

How do you think the family making this cheese feels?

They all feel amazing,

isolated, one with nature

and it tastes like that with every bite.

Worth it.

OG Goat.

A goat Gouda made in Belgium at a dairy called Grundle.

What's cool about Gouda

is that they actually wash the curds when it's in the vat.

Usually when people think of Gouda,

you're thinking about a very tangy soft cheese.

To me, Gouda is a sweet cheese.

It comes off like caramel, it comes off like maple.

And when you wash the curds in the vat,

what happens is the cheese becomes sweeter.

How?

Because cheese is fermentation,

converting lactose to lactic acid and lactose is milk sugar.

But I digress.

Goat. Ooh sweet, kind of boozy, yeasty,

fermented vibe, sour cream.

Gouda historically is covered in wax.

When you're covering a wax, you're sealing it up

and when you're sealing it up,

that does not allow for external stimuli

to impact the flavor.

It's all happening on the inside.

I consider goat to be a magnifier of terroir.

This like screams like sweet apple trees and cherries.

And this is what I imagine heaven tasting like in my mouth.

It's a little crunchy, thanks to the tyrosine.

Sweet cream, sweet vidalia onion, cotton candy, mildly tart.

This cheese is worth it because

it's precisely what the gods want Gouda to taste like.

Robiola Bosina.

This is a soft ripened bloomy rind cheese from Italy,

made with cow's milk and sheep's milk.

You could tell it's bloomy,

because it's got a little bit of white on it.

It's got like a pudgy texture,

which tells me that it's soft ripened.

Hoo-hoo.

The texture is both ooey gooey,

but then the rind also gives it this like,

mildly rubber texture as well.

Overall this cheese is so expensive for a few reasons.

It's very limited production.

It's actually flown here.

Because it's such a delicate cheese,

it can't travel by boat, so it's flown to America.

And then it's also made with sheep's milk,

along with the cow's milk.

That's a very expensive milk.

It's got a little bit of a sour note,

but like it's super subtle sour.

I mean a lot of that has to do with the fact

that like the acidification hasn't gone too wild yet,

because it's a young cheese.

So the cheese is a bloomy rind cheese,

which means penicillin candidum, which is a mold,

ripens the cheese from the outside in.

The cheese's flavor actually comes from

it developing this rind,

breaking down the protein and the fat from the outside in.

This is like the Italian version of a Camembert.

We're used to seeing a circle this size

and it's usually made of cow's milk.

What's cool is the Italians were like,

Nah, we're gonna add some sheep to it.

That's gonna punch up the flavor

and then we're gonna make it a square

because it's different than the Camembert.

This cheese wins my heart,

because it's ooey gooey, delicious.

It comes off more buttery than a Camembert.

And it's just so sexy to look at.

Cravero Parmigiano-Reggiano.

Not to be confused with Parmesan.

Parmigiano-Reggiano is to me the perfect table cheese.

It is just a masterfully aged cow's milk cheese.

What's cool about Cravero Parmigiano-Reggiano,

is they actually turn the wheels more frequently

than normal affineurs,

and what that does is that keeps the texture more even

and prevents the cheese from drying out faster.

The more moisture it could hold,

the longer you could age it out.

That's why people will experience Parmigiano-Reggiano,

in like 36 months.

Boozy, fruity,

sweet,

super dry

apple, pear.

Not too salty, again, not too salty means craftsmanship.

Cravero Parmigiano-Reggiano is aged on pine, aged on wood.

By being aged on wood, that is allowing for moisture,

it's allowing for a conduit between its outside environment

and its inside environment.

The term Parmigiano-Reggiano

has been bastardized to Parmesan,

so often what you think is Parmigiano-Reggiano, it's not.

And you can just tell by its texture.

You could just smell it.

This is perfect Parmigiano-Reggiano.

Testun al Foglie di Castagno.

We got a mixed milk cheese, cow and sheep.

This cheese is wrapped in chestnut leaves.

By adding the chestnut leaves,

you're adding a vegetal note to it.

A tannin note to it.

I asked five of my favorite cheesemongers

what they thought were expensive cheese,

each one of them made sure

that this cheese was on their list.

Talk about value, talk about handmade, talk about artisan.

So somebody found these chestnut leaves.

Somebody picked these leaves up and collected them.

Somebody hand placed

each leaf on the cheese,

add that to the age of the cheese,

add that to the two milk types, and you're like,

Yeah, this is gonna be an expensive cheese.

I smell the sheep.

So like, the lanolin really comes through.

There's a dampness to it.

There's a bit of a boozy-ness to it.

White chocolate, [indistinct], sweet,

floral, not that salty.

Ooh, a little antihistamine on the back. This is good.

It's got a a very fermented, yeasty,

yummy sweet vibe to it.

Very unique flavor of cheese.

Vacherin Mont d'Or.

This cheese, in its raw milk form,

banned in the United States, 'cause it killed somebody.

That's how good it is.

The cheese is covered in wood to retain its shape.

It's actually really wrapped in spruce bark.

It holds its shape,

but it also gives it this campfire note to it,

the smokiness to it.

Woo.

Woo-hoo-hoo-hoo.

Unctuous, bold.

This cheese is often referred to as the holy grail

of soft ripened cheeses.

These cheese you don't cut into per se,

you slice the top off,

revealing a very sexy paste.

The way to eat this typically,

is like with like a spoon, you could just scoop it,

but I'm so excited, I'm just gonna use my finger.

It's got a little bit of a sulfur note.

Unctuous, it's funky.

So this is made from thermized milk.

Thermite is slow and low.

It is not as high as temperature as pasteurized,

but it's for a longer period of time.

And what that does,

is it retains a lot of the good bacteria mold

while killing off the dangerous stuff.

This cheese lives up to the hype. It's ready to party.

Bon Anniversaire.

Raw cow's milk cheese,

made on Martha's Vineyard, by Grey Barn.

Got a funky nose,

it's got some candidum note to it.

It's a little white or bloomy.

I'm fascinated by this rind.

Typically when you hear a wash rind,

you're expecting it to be orange and tacky.

There is orangeness to the rind, but it's surely not tacky.

Salt forward, high sour, high bitter.

Unlike everybody else on Martha's Vineyard,

who's vacationing and like living the high life,

there's this cheese maker that is grinding it out every day,

365 days a year.

And that's what makes this special.

If you like a tangy cheese,

if you want a cheese with a high punch of tart,

this cheese is for you.

Grayson.

Raw cow's milk cheese made by Meadow Creek Dairy,

hailing from Virginia.

This cheese is special, first and foremost,

'cause the cheesemaker Helen Feete,

is one of the best American artisan cheese makers we have.

Woo-hoo-hoo-hoo.

Okay,

the funk is in the building.

This smells like something you should run from,

in a good way.

So although this has a big, big, big bold smell,

I am very confident it is not gonna taste that way.

I'm very confident it's gonna have a big taste,

but it's not gonna taste like what I'm describing.

Smells like onions, cabbage, steamed Brussels sprouts.

It's got a kick, high salt. Got that tang, got that funk.

It's definitely like beefy and bold and bullion.

This cheese is not for people that like it mild and creamy.

This cheese is gonna kick you in the teeth.

I sometimes want my cheese to kind of like,

smack me around a little bit like a Stooge, you know?

And that's what just happens here with this cheese,

in a good way.

Withersbrook Blue.

Raw cow's milk blue cheese,

a collaboration between Jasper Hill and Eden Iced Cider.

They're aging the cheese for 60 days

in the cellars of Jasper Hill

and then washing it with Iced Cider

and sealing it in a pouch.

And so what's wild is you got the

reaction of the blue cheese,

also interacting with the reaction of the cider,

breaking down the proteins

and creating this wild, fruity flavor combination.

Eden Iced Cider is a alcoholic cider made from apples,

that is stored outside over winter and allowed to freeze.

It's super fruity

and it's got that like fermented yeast note right on top

that really, really, really, really, really marries well

with the blue cheese from Jasper Hill.

Okay, so we've got a natural rind Cheese.

Woo.

Ladies and gentlemen, we have acetone.

That's that note that kind of smells like

nail polish remover.

Sweet, tart, sour cream.

This is like mega boozy, super fruity, cherries.

This is cream and texture,

sweet, supple, tart, fruity,

boozy, punch drunk, on this one.

This one's a winner.

Rogue River Blue.

World Champion blue cheese from Oregon.

That's right, ladies and gentlemen.

This cheese went to the World Cheese Awards

and was the first ever American cheese

to win the top award.

Rogue River Blue is a cheese

that is wrapped in syrah leaves

that are soaked in pear brandy,

which creates this very, very

sweet anaerobic vibe

that makes the cheese taste like dessert.

So they seal the cheese in a pouch.

And then there's this anaerobic reaction,

where the lactic acid is basically,

fermenting itself and breaking down slow and low

over an extended period of time,

creating a very, very, very subtle texture.

The note off the top, it gonna sound weird, smells like tea.

Ooh, I get the actual pear brandy note.

A little bit of sour cream or chive.

Woo.

Smells like, smells sweet.

Creamy and crunchy, boozy, decadent.

Blue cheese too often at the supermarket is super salty,

super loud and very one note.

The thing about expensive cheese, valuable cheese,

is that it's harmonious, it's multi-node.

It's like an orchestra.

And so there's a lot of different things happening at once.

You will never find blue cheese

as fluffy as this in any supermarket.

Roquefort.

The OG blue cheese from France.

There's only seven producers left in the world

that are making Roquefort.

And Roquefort, by the way, is a place in France.

This is Maison de Carles.

Out of the seven, they're the only ones

that are actually creating the mold necessary

to make this cheese.

Penicillium Roqueforti.

There's these caves where they take rye bread

and then create mold off of that rye bread,

and then that mold is what creates the blue cheese.

And out the seven Roquefort producers out there,

there's only one that's actually cultivating

that penicillium Roqueforti,

in the traditional way of storied past.

So this is a young Roquefort, and how do I know it's young?

It's because it's like so creamy.

Salt forward.

It's made of sheep smoke versus cow's milk,

so it comes off more delicate, more fatty.

One way to describe expensive cheese,

is that you're having a sense of place.

This cheese has transported me to France.

All the cheeses we've eaten today

are superb examples of craftsmanship.

You're tasting generations of families,

perfecting recipes and crafting terroir

that I promise you is gonna blow your mind.