The Most Expensive Cheese Made in Oregon (2024)

The essayist and anthologistClifton Fadiman famously called cheese “milk’s leap into immortality.” Chelsea Lowrie, lead cheesemonger at Zupan’s, shares another turophile axiom: “Cheese is meant to be eaten, not stored.” Her advice doesn’t contradict Fadiman’s point. He died in 1999 but is immortalized in his books and cheese poetics; milk writes its legacy by condensing to a 10th of its original weight and developing character over a few weeks, months, or years, maybe with a splash of brandy or a nice wrap of smoked maple leaves. It also becomes a lot more expensive.

What makes one cheese pricier than another? “Some of it is very purposeful,” Lowrie says, “and some of it can be arbitrary.” Cheese is a $38 billion industry in the US. Banking on Americans’ growing interest in specialty cheese, recent market research predicts the industry reaching as much as $48 billion by 2030. Oregon doesn’t make up much of that in quantity, producing only about 1 percent of the country’s milk. We’re more concerned with quality. Oregon’s own Rogue River Blue was named the very best cheese in the world, of any class or categorization, by the World Cheese Awards in 2019, the first American cheese to do so. “Europe was furious,” Lowrie says.

Cultural perception also matters. Names like Gruyère and Stilton have cachet. But in the US, “nobody’s willing to pay money forcheddar,” Lowrie says.

Other factors more directly affect price. Not only is the type of milk used in cheese making important, whether cow, sheep, goat, buffalo, or donkey (more on that in a moment), but also the breed of the animal. Holstein cows, “those big beautiful black-and-white monsters,” Lowrie says, produce “a ton” of milk (about nine gallons, or 75 pounds daily). Jersey cows average two-thirds of that—“but it’s coveted, because of the higher butterfat content.” Other animals yield even less. Goats? Generally just under a gallon. Donkeys? Four cups, which begins to explain why Pule, a Serbian donkey and goat milk cheese that’s regularly reported as the world’s most expensive, commands $600 per pound.

After the curds are separated from the whey, there’s aging, or “affinage.” How and where, by whom and for how long a wheel is aged all factor into the price—“whether you’re looking at natural lava caves or an indoor refrigerated space,” Lowrie says. “A temperature-controlled affinage facility is very expensive.” Which means, as a customer, you’re paying rent.

Tillamook’s workaday cheeses make up a large chunk of Oregon cheese production volume. Rogue River Blue—which, spoiler alert, is not the most expensive Oregon-made cheese—has an international audience. Though for the most part, Lowrie says, our artisanal cheeses stay local. Prestige aside, there is some logic behind serving cheese close to where it’s made.

As to its alleged immortality? Lowrie recommends buying cheese “as fresh as humanly possible—and eating it.” Once it’s reached the maker’s ideal aging window, the clock is ticking. And if it’s been cut, well, per Lowrie, “In an ideal world, there would never be a precut piece of cheese.” Unlike that vacuum-sealed bag in your fridge, she says you have about a week with the good stuff, “two to three at most.” It’s not often a health or safety concern, but rather, as sometimes happens with the legacy of immortalized artists, the flavor profile changes, “and not always in a positive way.”

The standard recommendation is one ounce of cheese per person, but that feels a bit skimpy. Most portioned cheese you’ll see at the grocery store ranges from one quarter to a half pound, with artisan cheese running roughly $20 to $40 per pound.

The Most Expensive Oregon-Made Cheese

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