15 months aged. Wilde Weide—pronounced VIL-da VEYE-duh—is one of the crown jewels of master cheese selector and affineur Betty Koster’s Dutch cheese roster. It’s a gouda, true, but calling it just a gouda is like saying a Ferrari is just a car. This is a gouda made with painstaking care in a remarkable setting.
The family of Jan and Rose van Schie graze their small herd of Montbeliard cows on their 300 year old island farm in the south of the Netherlands. The cows, the cheesemakers and the cheese are the island’s only residents. When their organic gouda of astounding complexity is ready to sell, it’s loaded on a boat to sail across to the mainland. The result is floral, ripe, with bourbon brown bass notes and unmatched creaminess.
There is very little of this cheese made, a tiny amount makes its way to America via its importer, Essex St. Cheese. I highly recommend you try some now, before it’s gone.

Compared to other goudas, it has a particularly bright, sweet, fruity character. The flavor grows and grows, then builds gently to a hint of that classic gouda butterscotch tang. Really nice.