Tasting ACS Cheese Winners

Tasting ACS Cheese Winners

In preparation for tomorrow’s S&W meat-o-rama, my dinner tonight was just an apple, bread, glass of wine and two outstanding cheeses: Roth’s Private Reserve ($18/lb) and Carr Valley Cocoa Cardona ($22/lb). Both were purchased at the Marion Street Cheese Market and both took first places in last month’s American Cheese Society competition, the Roth’s for American Original/Cow’s Milk and the Carr Valley's for American Original/Goat’s Milk.



Roth’s Private Reserve (above, left) has dense and crumbly texture with a potatoe-y bass note. This is a nibbling cheese, and it’s a little bit salty, caramel-like, which makes it nice with fruit. In addition to the #1 spot in American Original Cow’s Milk, this cheese picked up a third runner-up in the Best of Show category, which is saying something for a competition that involves over 1,000 cheeses.

The Carr Valley Cocoa Cardona (above, right) does not taste even a little like cocoa. Still, the dark dusting makes for a dramatic contrast with the very white cheese, but it does smear, which is kind of an aesthetic downside. This is a very subtle goat cheese; it’s almost hard to tell what animal it came from. A white Rhone (Cheverny, Domaine du Salvard, 2006) really brought out the goaty subtext, and after a bite of cheese and my first sip of wine, the citrusy wine strummed the cheese to life, revealing dimensions derived, perhaps, from having spent a little time in a cave, very complementary.

Lex Marshall, the cheese buyer at Marion St., recommended this white, and I would have normally gone with a red, but she felt that with cheeses, big flavored wines tend to overwhelm the subtlety of the cheese. She guided me right.

Marion Street Cheese Market
101 N. Marion, Oak Park
708-848-2088