After Queijo de Ovelha Amanteigado, a soft Portuguese sheep’s cheese, last year it was Swiss Gruyère matured for 18 months that received the title of best cheese in the world in 2025 at the latest “World Cheese Awards” held on Thursday in Bern.
Gruyère, described as “perfect and unforgettable” by the judges, won over 5,000 cheeses in the competition, from 46 different countries. It is made at the Vorderfultigen mountain cheese factory, located in the pre-Alpine Gantrisch region, between Bern, Friborg and Thun, in German-speaking Switzerland, which specializes in the production of AOP Gruyère.
This was the first time that the World Cheese Awards, organized by the British Guild of Fine Food in 1988, had been held in Switzerland, a country that had won five times before this edition.
Arranged on endless tables with white tablecloths and all numbered, 5,244 cheeses were tasted by an international jury of 265 experts (cheesemakers, chefs, buyers, sellers, journalists, etc.) from more than 40 countries, identifiable by their yellow aprons.
How to choose the best cheese in the world?
“We look at the visual aspect of the cheese, its interior and exterior appearance. Then, the second step is the olfactory appreciation. All the aromas it gives off. And finally, of course, the taste. (…) There is definitely something unusual in it. It definitely evokes good memories,” Kuba Maziarczyk, the final “super judge” and cheesemaker in Poland, explained to AFP.
“Cheese must be true to its terroir, it must be balanced in terms of flavor, aroma and flavour. It cannot be too refined or too raw. Cheese is always a question of harmony. This is why good cheeses are often cheeses with great traditions,” explains French judge Laurent Dubois, Meilleur Ouvrier de France (MOF) and cheesemaker in Paris.
The judges make the first choice from the most outstanding draw. These cheeses were then subjected to a second and third evaluation by a “super jury” consisting of 14 internationally renowned experts in front of around 2,000 people.
“We found very young cheeses, blues, hard cheeses and all sorts of things. This is what makes the competition so interesting. And just when we were getting tired, a cheese appeared and amazed us. That’s the charm of the World Cheese Awards,” explained British judge Nigel Barden, chef and food critic for the BBC.
John Farrand, a member of the Guild of Fine Food, reminded AFP that the competition was originally created “to promote small cheese producers around the world”. “At that time, in the 1970s and 80s (…) we may have forgotten the relationship between land, milk, animals and livestock, a relationship that exists in our cheese,” he said.
The next edition of the World Cheese Awards will be held in Cordoba, Spain.
