How to Find the Right Season to Buy Your Favorite Cheeses

I try not to buy strawberries in New York in January, but I don’t necessarily have a built-in calendar when it comes to my favorite curds. But I should; cheese, like many foodstuffs, is just as subject to the notion of seasonality. Like my favorite berries, cheese has distinct seasons, though, unlike freshly picked strawberries, not all cheese is best when fresh.

In our last story on cheese and seasonality, we outlined how various elements such as animal diet, breeding, and lactation cycles, and climate play into cheesemakers’ decisions about what cheeses they produce, and when. Not all cheeses are made, or even available, all year round. Artisanal cheeses that are produced continuously often experience changes in texture, flavor, and even color throughout the year due to seasonal variations in animal milk. The fat content and flavor of animal milks are affected not only by breeding cycles but also by what the animal is eating, which changes seasonally.

Like much farm produce, there are moments in the year when certain cheeses are at their peak, and purchasing accordingly can lend you transformative tasting experiences. Because many cheeses are subject to at least a little bit of necessary maturing, some cheeses that are made with the backbone of rich winter milk don’t become initially available until spring or summer, and other cheeses whose flavors express the grassiness of summer milk aren’t on the market until fall or winter.

One way to always buy artisanal cheese at its peak is to source it directly from the dairies and farmers markets nearest you so that you can talk to the cheesemakers directly about their products and processes. Otherwise, get to know some principals at hand that make certain cheeses shine in either the warmer or colder months.

Best Cheeses to Buy in Spring/Summer

Photo by Sebastian Coman Photography on Unsplash

Fresh Cheeses: Chèvre, Feta, Mozzarella

In the spring and summer, grazing animals switch to a fresh greens diet from a dried hay diet. Consequently, summer milk cheeses tend to be more flavorful, capable of expressing the various components that make up pastures and fields. Notes of grasses, herbs, flowers, and even allium can be found in cheeses made from spring and summer milk. Not all summer milk cheeses are at their peak in the summer, however, if they require ageing of at least a few months. But fresh cheeses that require no aging whatsoever, such as chèvre, feta, and mozzarella, are at their absolute peak flavor in the summer when sourced from summer milk, and essentially because they are so simply produced. (If you have a local creamery that produces fresh cheese year-round, take notes and see if you can discern flavor differences between warm and cold weather offerings.)

Humboldt Fog. Photo courtesy of Cypress Grove

Bloomy Rind Cheeses: Humboldt Fog, Chabichou, Kunik

An easy way to determine whether you are tasting summer or winter milk for cheeses that have any element of ageing to them is to subtract the amount of ageing time for the particular cheese from its packaging date or ask your cheesemonger for that information. Many bloomy rind cheeses have a short maturation period of up to only 8 weeks, so similar to fresh cheeses in their ability to express pasture flavors, delicate and creamy bloomy rind cheeses take on additional complexity when full ripe in the early or late summer. Bloomy rind beauties made from tangy goat’s milk shine particularly in the warmer months after the spring milking season: try France’s legendary Chabichou, Nettle Meadow Farm’s Kunik, or Cypress Grove’s Humboldt Fog.

Alp Blossom. Photo courtesy of Murray’s Cheese

Hard Cheeses: Alp Blossom, Pleasant Ridge Reserve, Verano

Hard cheeses are a little more generous in their timing since they are capable of staying vibrant longer than their fresh or young counterparts, but there are still elements of seasonality that can inform purchasing choices. Many exemplary firmer cheeses require 9-12 months of aging, so in the spring or summer, you can be tasting cheese from the previous year’s summer grazing period, such as Uplands’ award-winning Pleasant Ridge Reserve. Vermont Shepherd designs a cheese from summer milk specifically to express summery flavors, and appropriately, names it Verano. (“Summer” in Spanish. Its winter counterpart, “Invierno,” amplifies woodsy winter flavors.) Certain mild, nutty varieties made from rich winter milk start to reach maturation in the summer, and Austria’s Alp Blossom is one such offering that emphasizes the summer vibes with a coating of flowers.

Best Cheeses to Buy in Autumn/Winter

Stilton. photo credit: "File:Blue Stilton 01.jpg" by Coyau is licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0

Blue Cheeses: Stilton, Rogue River Blue, Bayley Hazen Blue

Blue cheeses rely on summer milk to attain some of the complex flavors they are known for, but they also typically rely on 3 to 6 months of ageing to develop their trademark blue veins and even more complexity. There’s a reason Stilton served with Port is an English Christmas treat: Christmas is precisely when the season’s Stilton is finally hitting its stride. Likewise, certain domestic blues such as award-winning Rogue River Blue are only available for a limited time during the colder months; washed with pear eau-de-vie and wrapped with grape leaves, it also lends seasonal flair. Jasper Hill’s go-to blue Bayley Hazen is available year-round, but try it at peak freshness in the fall as an excellent component with a root vegetable salad.

Vacherin Mont d’Or. Photo courtesy of:  "File:Vacherin Mont d'OR3.JPG" by Guy Waterval is licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0

Washed Rind Cheeses: Vacherin Mont D’or, Rush Creek Reserve, Winnemere

Certain washed-rind cheeses are winter’s mic-drop response to the idea that winter milk is generally less flavorful than summer milk. Vacherin Mont D’or is one of the most sought-after cheeses worldwide, with a production and distribution cycle that lasts only a handful of months. Washed with brine and wrapped with spruce bark, the resulting cheese is the texture of fondue and is only available when the weather calls for something like fondue. Domestic tribute cheeses made in the style of Vacherin include Uplands’ Rush Creek Reserve, and Jasper Hill’s Winnemere.

Comte photo credit: Photo by Gaëtan Werp on Unsplash

Alpine Cheeses: Comté, Gruyère, Raclette

The word “alpine” by itself inspires coziness, and its cheeses are exactly those that you want bubbling over a crock of soup or melted onto a plate of boiled potatoes and ham. Most Alpine varieties are built from a simple formula of flavorful summer milk plus time. Look for cheeses labeled “alpage,” which means that animals have grazed on the wildflowers of high elevation alpine pastures; given at least six months of ageing, the youngest alpine selections make their way to the winter markets. Again, with many firmer cheeses, they have ability to age well beyond their initial ripeness, but who really wants a crock of French onion soup in the summer?