Spanish Cheese Superstars

At your next dinner party, add a Spanish cheese plate—the new stars in cheese stores all over the U.S. Choose 4 to 5 cheeses and serve after dinner before dessert. Here is a roundup showcasing an array of options:

Cana de Oveja: Made with pasteurized sheep’s milk in the Murcia region, this bloomy-rind cheese resembles France’s Bucheron in size and shape.

Garrotxa: Made in Catalonia and matured for at least three weeks, Garrotxa (gah-ROW-cha) is a goat cheese that has a velvety gray-brown rind with a semi firm, nutty and sweet texture. 

Monte Enebro: The dimpled rind, resembling the bark of a birch tree, on this Castillian goat cheese adds eye candy to any cheese tray. Made with pasteurized milk, it is the handiwork of a single producer who has been making it for 20 years. The flavor is herbaceous and texture is dense and creamy.

Nevat: This soft-ripened goat cheese comes from a single producer in Catalonia. Nevat (neh-VAHT) takes its name from a Catalan word for snow, a reference to the frosty appearance of the rind. Strained in a cheesecloth bag, Nevat looks like a miniature mountain, with a flat bottom, wrinkled slopes and a peak.

La Peral: A blue cheese from Asturias, La Peral is made of pasteurized cow’s milk with the addition of sour cream from sheep’s milk. It is mellow and approachable and delicious with honey or fig cake.

Queso de la Serena: Made with raw milk from Merino sheep, it is one of Spain’s PDO (Protected Designation of Origin) cheeses. This tart cheese has a faintly bitter finish. When fully ripe, the paste becomes pungent and runny. Local custom is to cut off the top and scoop out the creamy interior with a spoon.

Roncal: Ranking among its finest sheep’s milk cheeses, Roncal is made with raw milk and is firm, golden and herbaceous in aroma. Delicious with quince paste or other fruit conserves.

Ros: Ros is a cheese from pasteurized sheep’s milk with aromas of brown butter, shortbread and butterscotch becoming more pronounced with age.

Zamorano: Another PDO sheep’s milk cheese, this one from Spain’s Castile-Léon region, Zamorano is a raw-milk cheese. Its flavors are full, nutty, salty and piquant; its aroma is like a broiled lamb chop.

Serpa: We cheated and left Spain, but this outstanding cheese is worth it. Produced in the Alentejo region of Portugal from raw sheep’s milk, Serpa smells of mushrooms, wet stone and crème fraîche and has a slightly bitter finish.
—Janet Fletcher and Denise Shoukas