This was possibly the best non-melange cheese I've had from Trader Joe's, and certainly the most distinctive. I lack the specialized vocabulary to convey what it tastes like, but it's never going to be mistaken for a cheddar or parmesan. Nobody will ever accuse it of being boring, or too much like a dozen other similar products. It also has the advantage of slicing nicely without crumbling.
I briefly toyed with the idea of adding it to my Top Ten list, but I think that I won't. It doesn't have that "must have more immediately" quality. But it's very, very good, and will be among my first choices when I'm selecting a cheese for myself and want a known quantity rather than an experimentation with the unknown.
Will I buy it again?
With pleasure.
Surprised, Wordsmith, that you didn't note the redundancy of "Spanish Manchego." There ain't no other kind!
ReplyDeleteFrom Wikipedia (authoritative enough for our purposes here):
Manchego (officially Spanish: queso manchego, pronounced: [ˈkeso maɲˈtʃeɣo]) is a cheese made in the La Mancha region of Spain from the milk of sheep of the manchega breed. Official manchego cheese is to be aged for between 60 days and two years.
Manchego has a firm and compact consistency and a buttery texture, and often contains small, unevenly distributed air pockets. The colour of the cheese varies from white to ivory-yellow, and the inedible rind from yellow to brownish-beige. The cheese has a distinctive flavour, well-developed but not too strong, creamy with a slight piquancy, and leaves an aftertaste that is characteristic of sheep’s milk.
The designation queso manchego is protected under Spain's Denominación de Origen (DO) regulatory classification system,[1] and the cheese has been granted Protected Designation of Origin (PDO) status by the European Union.[2]