ACS 2009 – Judging

The purest thing about the American Cheese Society conference is the cheese judging. The rest of the conference may have some great moments, some educational presentations, lots of time for the schmoozy-schmooze, and many opportunities to take incriminating photos at the hotel bar, but it’s all a little downhill after spending two solid days doing little else that touching, tasting, and evaluating cheeses made in the Americas.

Here’s my aesthetic judging table still life:

I’m sure that some folks who don’t win may not agree with me about the judging. That’s ok. What people need to remember is that this (or any) judging is not about evaluating the best cheese that a customer takes home for a party or eats on a cheese plate. No, the competition and judging is about which cheese in the room is best on those days we try them.

I won’t name names — all the retailers reading probably already know –- but some (not many, but some) ACS winners have been shocking because none of us have ever tasted those cheeses the way they tasted at the competition. Certainly we never got to taste them that way after the awards are given because demand is so high that if anything, they are rushed to stores with less aging or in greater numbers than before. Still, I’m sure that all those cheeses deserved to win based on what the judges had to work with.

(BTW, That is not true of this year’s winner which I have long thought is one of the country’s best 2 or 3 cheeses. But I’ll give them a separate post. They deserve it.)

The judging at the ACS works like this: a technical judge, usually a dairy scientist or professional cheese grader, is paired with an aesthetic judge, a cheese professional of some sort, but without a science background. The technical judge is the bad cop, starting with 50 points and subtracting for defects. The aesthetic judge is the good cop, starting at zero and awarding points for attributes up to 50. The two scores are combined for a total score. The top score (if it’s over 90 points) wins the subcategory and is eligible for Best of Show. This year there were over 1300 entries and 88 first place winners.

Here are some judges in action, not posing! In fact, Emiliano (of Liberty Heights Fresh in Salt Lake City, Utah) looked like he was gonna kick my ass when the picture-taking startled him.

Over two days I judged exactly 100 cheeses before the Best of Show decision. I have to say that overall the quality was higher than when I judged a couple of years ago. I only spat-for-my-life a couple of times! Amusingly enough, the worst cheese I got was one that I regularly carry. It has a distinctive wrapper that I recognized even if the cheese company and name were removed. (The technical judges never know these things.) Cheesemakers are not allowed to plug their cheeses to try them before sending in so the poor guy didn’t know he sent us one that something horrible had happened to… it had been sitting in its own whey like a neglected child sitting in a soiled diaper. It had an inch of discoloration all around but even the good-looking bit was bitter and rancid. The technical judge said it had “whey taint” which sounds a lot dirtier than it really is.

When the first place winners are figured out we return to the room –as individuals, not teams — to try all of them, deciding on our top three which are them awarded points weighted by our individual rankings. They were – as much as possible – arranged in rows from mild to strong, but there is no way to taste 88 different dairy products in a row without breaking for a palette cleanse. I don’t even know how much time it took from when they let us loose on the cheese until the scores were announced… but it was at least an hour.

They looked like this, labeled only by category and secret code #:

I did a once through and narrowed it down to about 8 cheeses. I was pretty sure about my #1 from the beginning, and #2 shortly thereafter, but I considered all the others for my #3. I slowly eliminated them until I had 4 left. I agonized over my 3rd place vote, I gotta tell ya. I tasted the last two cheeses against each other and went with the sheep one. I love sweet, salty cheeses. It’s kind of a weakness.

Anyways, I sat around for awhile while others finished and the votes were tallied. I ate a lot of fruit during this time. While I am confidant in my ability to pick cheese for sale in our store, for our customers, I have to admit that I wondered whether I would be the only one voting for the cheeses I voted for. I had no way of knowing what anyone else was considering. Judges were — almost 100% — obeying the spirit of the competition not to discuss any of this with each other. Would I find out that I had odd cheese fetishes or an outlying palate?

I have to admit I was shocked when the winners were announced. A tie was announced for third place. It was the two cheeses that I agonized over for my third vote. 2nd place? My vote for 2nd. 1st place? My vote for 1st. I immediately went out to buy a lottery ticket. Surprisingly, I didn’t win. I guess I only had the luck of the cheeses.