Midnight Moon Goat Gouda

Midnight Moon is a pasteurized goat's milk Gouda made in the Netherlands exclusively for Cypress Grove out of Northern California, aged for at least six months before it crosses the Atlantic. The paste is a pale ivory, dense and smooth under the knife, with the first whispers of crystal crunch coming through as the wheel matures.

On the palate it opens with brown butter and toasted hazelnut, then pulls into a long caramel sweetness that lingers well past the swallow. There's just enough goat-milk character underneath to remind you what you're eating, but the age has rounded off any sharpness, leaving a cheese that reads more like a butterscotch-laced aged Gouda than a goat cheese. A really approachable wheel, sweet and nutty in a way that wins over people who think they don't like goat cheese.