Featured Cheese - March 2024

Artikaas has been making artisan cheeses in The Netherlands for six generations, since 1890. Today’s cheesemakers combine traditional and sustainable cheesemaking methods that date back over 2000 years with modern-day technological advances to create enduring cheese masterpieces of texture and flavor to satisfy the growing international demand.

Sapore Mitica® is another Italian cheese from the same area as Ubriaco del Piave – the Piave River in Treviso, Veneto – and by the same cheesemaker, Sergio Moro, one of the finest makers of Sottocenere. Sapore del Piave as it is sometimes called – which means Flavor of Piave in Italian – originated in the 1960s, produced by a partnership of third-generation cheesemakers and a cooperative of dairy farms in the area of Oderzo, Italy. Made from pasteurized cow’s milk and aged for 16 months, Sapore Mitica is similar to a young Parmigiano Reggiano: buttery, with loads of fruitiness, nuttiness, and a delicious crunchiness from tyrosine crystallization.

Ewephoria is a Dutch gouda-style cheese made from pasteurized sheep’s milk instead of cow’s milk, as well as vegetable rennet cultures, and then aged 12 months. CheeseLand, a Seattle-based importer of Dutch cheeses, worked with a small farm to create Ewephoria in 2004. The sheep graze on salty, green, island pastures near a nature preserve in the northern Friesland region of The Netherlands bordering the sea, where they are treated like members of the family.

Cheesemaker Jeff Jirik describes his top-shelf blue as “complex, complicated yet delightfully intimate.” The paste and mouthfeel are super creamy. This cheese has a distinctive spicy piquant sharpness and tanginess and the presentation is nothing short of gorgeous with its abundant bluing. Overall, it’s a very approachable blue and not too overwhelming. St. Pete’s Select blue will pair well with strong ales like AleSmith’s Private Stock Ale or Deschutes Jubelale. It would also work well with your favorite tawny port.