Award-Winning American Cheese

America's Most Decorated Cheeses

Every cheese on this page has won a ribbon at the American Cheese Society competition, the most respected contest in American cheese. A panel of professional judges chose these wheels from well over a thousand entries, so you are starting at the top. The list reads like a tour of the country's best creameries: Jasper Hill's Bayley Hazen Blue, a natural-rind Vermont blue with toasted-nut and anise notes; Marieke's dense, butterscotch-sweet gouda from Wisconsin; Cypress Grove's Truffle Tremor, a California goat cheese laced with black truffle; and Briar Rose's Butterbloom, a buttery bloomy-rind from Oregon.

What ties them together is range. American cheesemaking has grown up, and this group shows how far: a world-class blue, an aged gouda good enough to rival the Dutch originals, farmstead cheddars with a crystalline crunch, a spruce-wrapped little round meant to be eaten with a spoon, and a Wisconsin brick that traces back to the state's earliest dairies. They come from small creameries in Vermont, Wisconsin, Oregon, New York, and California, the makers who turned American artisan cheese into something the rest of the cheese world now watches. igourmet cuts and wraps them to order and has shipped specialty cheese this way since 1997.

What an ACS Ribbon Means

The American Cheese Society runs the largest cheese judging in the Americas. Each summer cheesemakers send in their best work, and a panel of trained judges scores every entry on both technical merit and flavor. The 2025 competition weighed more than 1,500 cheeses across 123 categories and handed out just over 400 medals, so a ribbon means something: it is a cheese that stood out in a crowded, expert field. For a small creamery, that recognition is the kind that puts a name on the map.

It also makes this collection an easy answer to a hard question: what is the best cheese in America? No single wheel wins that title outright, but these are the cheeses the country's own experts rank at the top, which makes the page a reliable shortcut for a gift, a special-occasion board, or simply tasting the best of what American creameries are making now. If you have mostly known imported cheese, this is a fine place to see how far the domestic side has come.

Serving and Keeping Them

These cheeses reward a little care. Take each one out of the refrigerator thirty to forty-five minutes before serving, since the cold mutes the very flavors the judges rewarded. Give a strong cheese like Bayley Hazen Blue its own knife so it does not bully the milder wheels, and plan on one to two ounces of each per person for a tasting. The blue loves honey and a glass of Port, the gouda takes well to a dark beer, and the goat cheeses brighten next to a crisp white wine. To keep what you do not finish, wrap each piece and store it in breathable cheese storage bags, which hold a cut cheese far better than plastic wrap; most will stay good for a week or two, and the firm cheddars longer still.

Also Worth Exploring

If these whet your appetite for more, the award-winning cheeses collection widens the field to other honors, including World Cheese Awards medalists from around the globe. The American cheese collection gathers the broader run of domestic artisan wheels, from farmstead cheddars to soft-ripened rounds, while the crackers and crisps collection gives any of these winners a crisp base to sit on.