Blog

Featured Cheese of the Week: Vintage 5-Year Gouda

2/13/2012

If there were ever a cheese that could truly be mistaken for a dessert, it would be the Vintage 5-Year Gouda produced in northern Holland: everything about it screams “sweet”, from its caramel color to its butterscotch flavor.  Made out of pasteurized Dutch Holstein cow’s milk and aged for five years, these twenty pound wheels of goodness are hand-selected for the high quality they must have in order to make it through all the years of aging.  Unlike most Goudas eaten here, the texture of the Vintage Gouda is very firm, almost flaky, and incredibly dense, with tiny acid crystals scattered throughout which give little bursts of crunchiness.  And like we said before, this cheese is Sweet (yes, with a capital “S”) with rich, strong caramel and butterscotch notes tempered by just a hint of saltiness.  This works well as a stand-alone cheese and we recommend enjoying it at the end of a meal, pairing it with full-flavored beers like porters and robust red wines like Merlot.  Unless, of course, you like to eat your dessert first… or at any point throughout the day, really.