The Best Cheeses to Try this Fall
Four gooey, rich, fall-favorite cheeses to taste this season. Expert recommendations for autumn’s best cheeses.
Fall cheeseboard photo credit Brooke Lark
We’ve all heard that cheese is seasonal. That’s because the composition of milk changes based on the season and what the animal is eating. If you make the same exact cheese, following the same steps, one with winter milk and one with summer milk, they will taste different, and even have different textures, as they’ll have differing amounts of proteins and milk fats. Award-winning cheesemakers have capitalized on this, making seasonal drops throughout the year of some of their highest-prized cheeses.
But it’s not just that. There’s just something about a bright and tangy goat’s milk cheese in the springtime, or an alpine style melter in the winter. In the fall, you want a cheese you can cozy up to that brings fall flavors to the table, like smoke, wood, nuts, mushrooms, or even root vegetables.
Styles of Autumnal Cheeses
Washed Rind
Spruce Wrapped
Annatto colored
Josh Windsor
I spoke to Josh Windsor, the Associate Director of Caves for Murray’s Cheese, for his recommendations. “For me, autumn means soft ripened, washed rinds,” Windsor says. There’s a tradition to it, as villagers would make washed rind cheeses to ripen in the autumn, just in time to pay to the church or a noble family as a tithe or tax.
“There is something uniquely satisfying in enjoying these cheeses as the weather begins to cool down,” Windsor adds. “Their reliance on savory aromas and unctuous textures are made to fortify against a brisk wind. A thick piece of rye toast slathered with a funky washed rind is my ideal autumnal breakfast,” Windsor says.
I’d add spruce-wrapped cheeses to that list. Their rinds are cinched with a spruce bark belt, which keeps the custardy paste from toppling over and oozing out. It also imparts a woodsy flavor to the cheese inside, which feels very on theme for the season. Another natural choice? Any cheese resembling a pumpkin, thanks of course to annatto dye used to color some cheeses, most famously Cheddars.
From a French washed rind with a thousand-year-old history to a 2024 American Cheese Society winner, below are our picks for the cheeses you need to try this fall.
The Four Fall Cheeses You Need to Try:
Double Doe
Double Doe photo courtesy of Murray's Cheese
In 2024, Murray’s Cheese released Double Doe, a goat and sheep’s milk table cheese with a just-firm texture and notes of peanuts and roasted root vegetables. The unaged wheel is passed off from Pennsylvania’s the Farm at Doe Run to New York’s Murray’s Cheese, where Windsor ages it for four months. “The cheese is washed in a Danish mead creating a rich and meaty interior with wisps of fruit on the rind,” Windsor says. “It is the perfect companion to apple butter or to be chased with a dry cider.”
Harbison and Other Spruce-Wrapped Cheeses
Harbison photo credit Jasper Hill Farm
Look for cheeses wrapped in spruce bark for a woodsy, very on theme for the season contribution to a snack board. Harbison by Vermont’s Jasper Hill Farm may be the most easy to find. Since its invention, it’s been lauded as a modern addition to the iconic cheese canon, and can be found in more than just specialty cheese stores. It’s typically served by cutting the rind off the top, revealing the creamy ivory paste inside. When ripe (or popped in the oven for a few minutes to melt) the cheese is a dip in itself, a centerpiece meant for spooning into with potato chips, pretzels, or roasted vegetables. If you love Harbison, chances are you’ll also be delighted by smoky, custardy Uplands Cheese Company Rush Creek Reserve (available late fall), or Murray’s Cheese Greensward, which is washed in cider and was originally created for Eleven Madison Park. Read more about Uplands Cheese Company and an interview with founder Mike Gingrich.
Maroilles
Maroilles photo credit Murray's Cheese
Maroille is a traditional French fall cheese — the practice of making it in the summer and eating it in the fall date back to 960 A.D. On the feast day of St. John the Baptist (June 24th), the process would begin, and on the feast day of St. Remi (October 1st), it was given as a tithe to the local abbey. Which, in turn, used the cheese to feed the local hardworking Champagne grape harvesters. Washed in salt water, the cheese has a funk typical to a washed rind, with a pudgy paste and notes of mushroom. “Maroilles has a pungent kick, so I like to pair it with stronger flavors. The sweetness of a caramelized onion jam rounds out the cheese nicely, particularly when washed down with a light-bodied saison,” says Windsor.
Mimolette
Mimolette photo credit Murray's Cheese
A cow's milk cheese originally colored with carrot juice, and then with annatto natural coloring, the striking orange mimolette was once illegal in the U.S. due to the use of cheese mites during production. The mites, microscopic arachnids, eat at the rind of the cheese, giving it a cantaloupe-like appearance, and providing oxygen to the paste inside. The resulting cheese has the hard, textured rind of a melon and a craggy pumpkin-orange interior that tastes of savory butterscotch with crunchy tyrosine crystals. Now, the mites are blown off the cheese before being sold, so they’re safely under the U.S.’ mites limit, yet still, a great Halloween party star and conversation starter. Paired with caramelized walnuts and apple butter, it's a bite that calls to mind the satisfying pairing of Cheddar cheese and apple pie.