Midnight Moon, A Romantic Goat Cheese Gouda

Maybe it's the woman on the label, Bella-Bella daBall or perhaps it's the romantic name, but the goat cheese Midnight Moon by Cypress Grove Chevre creamery is made for the lover in us all.

I'd been perusing the cheese station at my local market, in particular looking to try an all-goat confection, when a wedge of semi-hard glacier-white cheese with an intriguing name caught me eye. Lo and behold, what I found was a hidden cheese treasure, Midnight Moon... Oh...

I brought it home thinking I'd enjoy a hunk of it with the tempranillo Spanish wine I also purchased, but couldn't wait that long. With abandon, I undressed that wedge of cheese and broke off a piece that made a speedway to my mouth. All of time suddenly slowed to almost a standstill as I allowed the rich, smooth, buttery and dense fullness of the thing to dissolve on my palate.

It was like I had a cheese epiphany.

Immediately I went online to find out my taste buds hadn't deceived me. Midnight Moon has received top accolades from cheese masters worldwide in fact, winning Best in Show out of 69 entries in the Hard Goats Milk Cheese category for the 2010 World Cheese Championships among other top cheese awards over the last 8 years since its creation.

Cypress Grove Chevre may be a California dairy, but make no mistake Midnight Moon is crafted and aged in one of the cheese meccas of the world, Holland. If you love Gouda then you'll love Midnight Moon which to my taste buds was even more buttery and a lighter-fluffier version of Gouda, but at the same time, rich nutty and dense which is even more than surprising coming from a cheese made of vegetarian rennet.

I never knew how sexy and romantic cheese could be until now, and as The Cheesemonger describes it, "Midnight Moon is pure cheese porn."