Serious Cheese: Rogue River Blue Wins 2009 American Cheese Society Competition
Rogue River Blue, the beautiful grape-leaf wrapped blue cheese from Oregon's Rogue River Creamery, took top honors at this year's American Cheese Society competition, held last week in Austin, Texas. Rogue is actually one of the older creameries in the country, in operation since 1935. It also took home awards for its flavored cheddars, Chocolate Stout, and Lavender, as well as its Smokey Blue.
In second place was one of my favorite cheeses of all time: Cowgirl Creamery's Red Hawk, a triple-cream washed rind from California. I was also happy to see Vermont's Consider Bardwell Farm take third place overall with their Rupert. They are a new favorite of mine, having shown up this season at the small farmer's market in my little corner of Brooklyn. Rupert is an aged cow's milk cheese similar to Comté or Gruyère.
This year's competition was the biggest ever, with 1,327 entries. The cheeses were judged based on aesthetic criteria (taste, texture and aroma), and technical criteria (how well the cheese is made). The full list of winners is available here. Congratulations to Rogue River Creamery and the rest of the 2009 winners.
About the author: Jamie Forrest publishes Curdnerds.com from his apartment in Brooklyn, New York, where he lives with his wife, his two children, and his cheese.
View other entries from Serious Cheese.
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6 Comments:
Yay! The Smokey blue is my favorite. Congrats, Rogue!
devlyn at 2:37PM on 08/11/09
What timing! I wrote about Rogue River Blue exactly one year ago today. Naturally, I had to write about your post today.
My husband says this is a blue cheese for people who don't think they like blue cheeses but do love full-flavored cheeses.
http://www.bostonzest.com/2009/08/rogue-river-blue-amercian-cheese-society-winner.html
BostonZest at 4:21PM on 08/11/09
I work for a cheese distributor and we did a photo shoot of this cheese today. Lucky me I got a piece to take home. Honey and marcona almonds are great with it!
pearce77 at 7:04PM on 08/11/09
Sweet! The local goat dairy got four wins (Haystack Mountain). And MouCo got a couple wins as well. They aren't as close, but they sell at the local farmer's market.
dbcurrie at 10:48PM on 08/11/09
my friends who own firefly farm in maryland won 2nd place in the open category made from goat's milk for their bella vita!! i'm so excited!
gastronomeg at 10:38AM on 08/12/09
Great info. I'll be looking out for the Rogue River Blue this weekend. They have it at Murray's I presume?
Tia Kim at 11:32PM on 08/12/09