The best cheese in the world is called ‘Olavidia’ and it is produced in Guarromán, Jaén

‘Olavidia’, a goat cheese made by the family cheese factory ‘Quesos y Besos’, located in Guarromán (Jaén), has been raised this Wednesday with the award for the best cheese in the world at the World Cheese Awards 2021, which was held this Wednesday in Oviedo.

This cheese has been chosen among the 16 that have managed to access the grand final of this contest, in which more than 4,000 varieties from 48 countries have participated of the five continents.

The jury has highlighted the winning cheese, which has been imposed with 103 points to the rest of the finalists -whose names have not been released yet-, the “great quality” of the product and the “meticulous” work in the entire production, as well as its original square format.

Silvia Peláez and Paco Romero are the owners of this cheese factory, which started up in mid-2017 and has seven workers. One of his first productions was Olavidia, a goat cheese whose name refers to the writer and jurist Pablo de Olavide and that It is made with slow-pasteurized goat milk from our own livestock and that has a maturation process with molds and charcoal of between 15 and 20 days.

Each piece, with an approximate weight of between 250 and 300 grams, It is divided by charred pit of olive from Jaén, in an attempt to “break all the schemes”, has assured Peláez, who has acknowledged that the award he has collected this afternoon from the Asturian president, Adrián Barbón, has left him “speechless.”

Speaking to journalists after the jury’s decision, he celebrated that the award recognizes the way of working of a company which has “extreme quality” products and “innovative formats”.

“We are in diapers and learning to make cheese every day”, has revealed the owner of ‘Quesos y Besos’, whose name try to “flee” from the traditional and show off the “family essence” that she has the company that she runs with her husband.

Throughout the whole day, the 250 judges of the WCA organization have begun to score the more than 4,000 cheeses distributed in 85 tables -About 47 specimens per table-, which participate in this tasting in which their quality has been evaluated based on scales such as shape, smell, touch, taste, presentation of the product and difficulty of preparation.

Each of the tables has chosen a specimen that has been rated super-gold and that it has continued to compete in a kind of semifinal to be chosen among the sixteen best cheeses in the contest that has broken the record of participations this year.

In the final, each super judge has defended each of the classified cheeses and that have been scored by the rest of the members of this jury, who have worn an apron created by the Asturian designer Marcos Luengo.

The WCA is included in the Asturias Paraíso Natural International Cheese Festival organized by the Cheese Institute, which from tomorrow will develop a program with different spaces in which the public will be able to appreciate and taste varieties of cheeses from the five continents.

You will also be able to attend the Gastro Cheese Comedy, which will have as its headliner the Asturian chef José Andrés, 2021 Princess of Asturias Award for Concord, and other names such as El Niño de Elche, who will have a show with the Casín Cheese.