The results are in from the World Championship Cheese Contest in Wisconsin! Several of our cheeses placed in their categories, and Winnimere finished in the Top 16 out of nearly 3,000 entries!

Our own Winnimere stores are a bit low at the moment - we have plenty of cheese ripening in the pipelines, but none available to ship until later this month. Orders placed for Winnimere in the meantime will be held to ship the week of 3/21, when this raw-milk cheese has aged for 60 days and is legal for sale. 

One of these awards is particularly special to us: a first place for Moses Sleeper in brie style cheeses. While it's long been a core part of our collection, Moses has rarely been the one to bring home a ribbon. We feel that this has a lot to do with perceptions about what a brie-style cheese "should" be: industrial cheeses in that style are bland, buttery things with little flavor; versions sold in Europe are funky and complex, rich in aroma and color. With Moses we try to straddle the line, making something that's buttery and approachable but has some depth of flavor to keep things interesting. The result is a cheese that we love to eat, but doesn't always fit neatly into a category with contest judges.

Our winners this year include: 

• Moses Sleeper: 1st place, brie
• Winnimere: 1st place, smear ripened cheese, and Top 16 overall!
• Harbison: 2nd place, open class soft ripened cheese
• Bayley Hazen Blue: 4th place, blue veined cheese, exterior molding

These cheeses finished at the top of their categories among a record-breaking 2,948 entries, including hundreds of international products that have been made for centuries. We are thrilled and humbled to be among this year's winners!