Today is National Cheese Lover’s Day, an unofficial national holiday. While no one knows who decided to hail January 20th as the day to celebrate fromages of the world, it’s a good enough excuse as any to head to the nearest deli and load up on the dairy delight.
However, if winter is bogging you down and you cannot be bothered to change out of your fleece pajamas, here is another option that will allow you to participate in the cheese festivities from the comforts of your couch: buying cheese online.
With almost everything available on the Internet, it’s not surprising that gourmet cheeses can be purchased on the web. Most of the cheese retailers offer express shipping, ensuring that your orders arrive in less than 48 hours, unspoiled and in optimal condition. (And by optimal condition, we mean perfect enough to pop them fancy cheeses straight into your salivating mouth.)
Without further ado, here are a couple of awesome online cheese stores to check out so you can satiate your cheese craving.
Artisanal Premium Cheese
Just one look at this retailer’s homepage is enough to drive any cheese-crazy person mad with gluttony, making it the perfect stop for an online cheese binge.
You can pick whatever cheese you’d like through a variety of ways: by the type of milk it’s made from, by its country of origin, by texture. If you can’t choose just one, you can splurge on their many available gift collections.
Artisanal Premium Cheese
Products from Artisanal Premium Cheese may be a little bit pricey—although some of the items available seem to be available on discount, yay!—but it’s definitely worth it if cheese is your first love. In fact, if you love cheese so much, you might want to consider signing up for The Artisanal Premium Cheese Club, which allows you to enjoy four delectable cheeses (covering mild, medium, bold, and strong flavors) hand-picked by specialists and express delivered to you every first Wednesday of the month.
Murray’s
A cheese establishment that offers classes to learn more about cheese is definitely a good sign, so you know the people at Murray’s are not messing around when it comes to their favorite delicacy.
Just like Artisanal Premium Cheese, Murray’s lets you search for cheese according to country, milk type, and price. It also lets you filter results according to pasteurization as well as according to what goes with what drink, which could be useful if you feel like hosting a wine-and-cheese soiree of sorts. (Invite us, please.)
Murray’s offerings are so extensive, you will have a hard time not finding a cheese you will like. Something you should definitely check out is their assortment of cave-aged cheese, which are stored in aging facilities where they are ripened to perfection. You can learn about the process on Murray’s official website.
If you’ve been meaning to take a trip to Spain but haven’t gotten around to booking a ticket, you can make believe you are there by buying yummy cheese online that are directly imported from there.
Spanish cheese is apparently one of the finest in the world—over 400 artisan varieties are produced all over the country. While La Tienda only offers a few of these gourmet cheeses, the choices are enough to give you an idea of what makes cheese from Spain popular.
La Tienda
A lot of the items are already out of stock as of this writing, but if you order now, you can probably get your hands on the ones that are still available.
Cowgirl Creamery
If you’ve got no time to browse through hundreds of types of cheese and would just like to stuff your face with them as soon as possible, Cowgirl Creamery offers a variety of cheese collections that will surely satisfy your cravings.
Cowgirl Creamery
Some of the packages already come with crackers, crostinis, deli meats, jam, and serving apparatus, so you’re all set. Just be prepared to splurge.
Zingerman’s Mail Order
Traditional rennet cheeses are cheeses made by separating curds and whey using the stomach lining of animals like cow, sheep, and goat. It’s a process that has gone on in the cheese-making industry for over a thousand years.
That is only one of the many types of cheeses offered by Zingerman’s, which also sells sweets, pastries, olive oil, and meat to accompany your favorite dairy product.
Every cheese page includes an artsy illustration with a little bit of information about the cheese’s history and how it’s made.
Zingerman’s Mail Order
iGourmet
If you feel like exploring over 800 types of gourmet cheeses hailing from 36 different countries, iGourmet has you covered. And for precisely this reason, we’re keeping the write-up of this retailer short so you can get cracking on your online cheese expedition.
iGourmet
Illustration by Max Fleishman
