Winnimere Is America's Best Cheese (And It Tastes Like a Vermont Forest)

In a year when the world lost its collective mind over cottage cheese — yes, cottage cheese, that sad 1980s diet relic that somehow became the It Girl of the dairy aisle — the American Cheese Society did something genuinely meaningful: they crowned Winnimere the Best of Show for 2026.

Let me tell you why that matters.

Winnimere comes from Jasper Hill Farm in Greensboro, Vermont — a place that treats cheese-making with the same obsessive reverence that Swiss watchmakers treat timekeeping. It's a raw cow's milk washed-rind cheese, inspired by the Alpine classic Vacherin Mont d'Or. But here's where it gets interesting: each wheel is wrapped in a strip of spruce cambium — the inner bark layer — harvested right from Jasper Hill's own woodlands.

You read that right. America's best cheese tastes like walking through a Vermont forest after a rainstorm while eating butter.

The competition was fierce — more than 1,600 entries. Second place went to Artze, a sheep's milk beauty from Blakesville Creamery in Wisconsin (finished with Piment d'Espelette, because of course Wisconsin is flexing on everyone). Third place was 'Nati Gouda from Urban Stead Cheese in Ohio, which has the best name of any cheese in the competition and also happens to taste incredible.

Wisconsin, by the way, took home 124 awards — more than any other state. Vermont and California trailed behind. The cheese industrial complex is alive and well.

But back to Winnimere. This isn't a cheese you casually grate over pasta. It's a spoonable, oozy, woodsy bomb of umami. The spruce bark isn't a gimmick — it helps hold the cheese's shape during aging and imparts this subtle resinous note that cuts through the richness. Washed in brine, aged for about two months, it comes out tasting like something between a funky Alpine and a really good piece of charcuterie all by itself.

The ASC competition happened in Louisville, Kentucky back in July. The fact that I'm still thinking about a cheese award months later should tell you something. In an era of algorithmic food trends and TikTok cottage cheese ice cream (yes, that's real, and it's a crime against dairy), Winnimere is a reminder that the best food doesn't come from a focus group. It comes from a farm in Vermont where someone decided to wrap cheese in tree bark because, against all odds, it works.

Go find some. Eat it at room temperature. Drink a good IPA with it. Thank me later.