I was stunned at the price of a locally sourced cheese, Chateau Fresno Organics Sheep Milk Cheese, is $48.99 a pound at Whole Foods. Cheeses that are shipped half-way around the world aren't that expensive. I get the whole "buy local" arguement, but come on, near $50 a pound for cheese?!

So is this cheese worth it?

I don't know yet. Having a cheese like this in isolation is limiting. Like grass-fed aged beef, until it's compared to corn-fed aged beef and grass-fed corn-finished beef, who knows really.

Another comparison would be wine. How much better is a $225 bottle versus a $45 or $15 bottle. Can only the most refined palates taste the difference? Or is most of that price difference purely marketing? I've paid up for some wine in my day, great wines that blew me away. I've even paid up for truffles a few times, but I was in heaven after the first sliver. I'm not in heaven yet with this cheese.

I can say that the Chateau Fresno cheese has flavor, depth, and finish. Based upon the way the cheese is aged, there isn't a lot of cheese to actually eat either. Whether it's Whole Foods cutting $12 slices too small or a very long aging process, the edible parts of the cheese are slim. So that $48.99/lb price tag better get stretched, because it's doubtful many Fresnan's are putting a pound of this stuff on the table, only to watch the core of the cheese get eaten and throwing the rest away. I will use the whole piece, taking the generally unedible parts and throwing them into lentil soup or something.

The $12 nub I purchases went well with Creminelli Finocchiona Salami.

But the verdict is still out for me. There are plenty of aged goat and cow milk alternatives out there, non-local and local. However, sheep's milk cheese is a rarity here in the States, unlike in Europe, so rarity of a commodity should play a role in price.

Perhaps one of my long time followers, Cheese Fan and member of the North American Cheese Society, Scheherazade, could weigh in. Or perhaps, she could challenge me as she did many years ago with a blind dark chocolate tasting. Just like blind wine tastings, it challenges even the most arrogant S.O.B. and their opinions (like me).