Day 860 : Knock your socks off blue...

As a surprise with my three American artisanal cheeses, I got two extra cheeses from Artisanal this past Friday and I just had to talk briefly about the surprise blue hailing from the Leon region of Spain which would be a perfect rainy afternoon cheese perhaps with a nice medium bodied red or even a bitter and tangy IPA.

Valdeon - a mixed cow and goat's milk blue wrapped and aged in a sycamore leaf. This is an "in your face" sort of cheese -- spicy, piquant and biting but nutty, rustic, earthy and fabulous. This is the sort of cheese that awakens your taste buds and does the most fantastic dance on your palate. It surely isn't for the faint of heart though -- if Stilton is too strong for you, then Valdeon will definitely knock your socks off. But for those of you blue cheese fans, this is just fantastic!

Image courtesy of www.artisanalcheese.com

Thanks guys for the surprise!