OVIEDO, SPAIN—In a stunning victory for moisture control and utter neglect, a two-year-aged French Comté was crowned World Cheese of the Year on Tuesday, defeating 5,329 competitors in a grueling international contest that tested the judges' collective ability to pretend they enjoy chewing on drywall dust.
The winning wheel, which spent 730 days fermenting in a limestone cavern in the Jura region, reportedly features complex notes of crystallized protein, historical sorrow, and a distinct aromatic profile that can only be accurately described as a wet dog locked inside a warm attic during a damp autumn.
"Time is the fifth ingredient," said head judge Jean-Luc Dupont, wiping a tear from his eye after successfully swallowing a calcium lactate crystal sharp enough to puncture a lung. "Water, salt, milk, rennet, and the agonizing passage of years while you wait for a perishable dairy product to achieve geological stability. You cannot rush perfection. You simply ignore milk until it hardens into a weapon and then charge twenty-two dollars an ounce for it to venture capitalists who hate their families.
The annual World Cheese Awards, which brings together thousands of dairy purists to stroke their facial hair and sniff rinds with the solemnity of Supreme Court justices, heavily praised the Comté for a texture experts described as 'aggressively crumbly' and 'actively threatening to modern dental work.' Unlike lesser, plebeian cheeses that foolishly choose to be soft, spreadable, or remotely enjoyable to eat, the championship Comté committed fully to the austere, punishing lifestyle of a fossilized doorknob.
According to industry insiders, the final victory was secured during the closed-door deliberations when the French delegation successfully argued that the cheese had been aged in a subterranean vault that once housed Napoleonic war crimes. The profound historical trauma embedded deep within the microflora allegedly gave the dairy an unmistakable earthy depth that standard supermarket cheddar simply cannot match, mostly because supermarket cheddar is designed for human consumption rather than psychological intimidation.
"People always ask me why I happily pay forty-five dollars for a tiny, chalky triangle of dairy that leaves a fine white dust all over my dark wool coat," said artisanal cheese enthusiast Marcus Vance, gently tapping a wedge of the winning Comté with a tiny silver mallet at a crowded tasting bar. "I tell them it is about heritage. It is about respecting the rich, unbroken tradition of medieval French monks who accidentally forgot a bucket of curds in a dark hole in 1422 and decided to eat it anyway because they were far too proud to admit defeat to the local abbot.
Ticket holders and festival attendees noted that the winning wheel was treated with greater reverence than most heads of state. Following the announcement, the cheese was immediately loaded into a heavily armored Brinks security vehicle and flanked by tactical guards who were blissfully unaware that their precious cargo was, fundamentally, just very expensive foot skin.
At press time, the victorious dairy product was resting comfortably in a temperature-controlled vault, completely unaware that it will soon be scraped onto a stale water cracker and washed down with a twelve-dollar natural wine that tastes entirely like vinegar and regret.