Discover the 7 Most Expensive Cheeses in the World Today

High-end grocery stores stock lots of cheeses with price tags that tower over the usual blocks of cheddar, swiss, and mozzarella in most American refrigerators. What cheeses cost the most? Discover the 7 most expensive cheeses in the world today.

7. Rogue River Blue Cheese: 75 Dollars Per Pound

Rogue River Blue Cheese is created by the Rogue Creamery located in the Rogue Valley in southern Oregon. This cheese sells for about 75 dollars per pound, and it’s only produced during the Fall. Each year on the Fall Equinox, the new year’s cheese is unveiled for sale.

The cheese is only produced in the Fall because the pasture grass on the farm is at its best, which produces the best quality cow’s milk. Once the cheese is aged about 9 to 11 months in caves, it is wrapped in pear spirit-soaked Syrah grape leaves.

These grape leaves are soaked in alcohol. Because of this, they are flimsy enough to envelope the cheese easily. Syrah grapes are a variety that are grown in southern Oregon to produce high-quality wines.

This is the most expensive cheese produced in America, and it’s prized around the world. It is a dense cheese that has a boozy quality because of the pear spirits and has been described as creamy with a hint of wine flavor. As a counterbalance to the creaminess, the blue part of the cheese provides a grittiness that’s described as a minerally saltiness.

6. Extra Old Bitto Storico Cheese: 150 Dollars Per Pound

Extra Old Bitto Storico is the oldest edible cheese on Earth, and it costs about 150 dollars per pound. That’s because it’s produced in a painstakingly long process by 12 cheesemakers in the Bergamo Alps of Northern Italy.

All Bitto Storico wheels are aged from 15 to 18 years which helps drive up their price. They’re a combination of goat and cow milk, with 80 percent being from cows and 20 percent from goats. The younger the cheese, the sweeter it is, and it gets spicier with age.

Extra Old Bitto from China is based on the same old Italian recipe that was brought to Hong Kong in 1997. Mirroring its Italian roots, most of the Extra Old Bitto sold in China is about 10 to 15 years old. Because of this, it fetches approximately the same price per pound as its authentic Italian counterpart.

5. Wyke Farms Vintage Cheddar: 200 Dollars Per Pound

Wyke Farms is in Somerset, England, and it produces a vintage cheddar that sells for 200 dollars per pound. This means that it is the most expensive cheddar cheese in the world. Despite this, it’s produced in large quantities, and it is available at a lot of major grocery stores.

4. White Stilton Gold Cheese: 420 Dollars Per Pound

White Stilton Gold cheese is made by the Long Clawson Dairy in England, and it sells for about 420 dollars per pound. It was created in 2011, and it’s a standard white stilton that’s soaked in gold liqueur and covered in gold flakes.

The milk that goes into the Stilton cheeses produced by this particular dairy company is sourced from 41 various farms. These farms are located in one of 3 places: Derbyshire, Nottinghamshire, and Leicestershire.

3. Moose Cheese: 500 Dollars Per Pound

In Sweden, The Moose House produces a moose milk cheese that sells for 500 dollars per pound. This locale is also known as The Elk House since moose are called elk in Europe. This cheese isn’t available internationally, so you’ll have to visit Sweden to try it.

There are 4 types of moose cheeses on offer including feta, white mold, creamy blue cheese, and dry blue cheese. Even though it isn’t a regional cheese type, the feta is the most popular, and it’s preserved in a high-quality vegetable oil.

In the Bjurholm region, the cheese produced comes from only 3 animals named Haelga, Gullan, and Juna. Since these moose only produce milk from May to September, this helps drive up the price of the cheeses.

2. Pule Cheese: 600 Dollars Per Pound

Pule cheese, also called magareći sir or donkey cheese, was the most expensive cheese in the world for a while at 600 dollars per pound. This cheese made its debut in September 2012 at a cheese show in England. It tastes like a buttery Manchego that is sweet and tangy.

One farm on the planet, Zasavica, produces this cheese which makes it exceedingly rare. This farm is located in a Serbian bog within the Zasavica Special Nature Preserve located in west-central Serbia.

Because this cheese is produced from the milk of the Balkan donkey, it’s considered a special cheese. Balkan donkeys are an indigenous breed of Serbian donkeys. Because of this, the cheese can’t be replicated elsewhere.

The cheese isn’t purely donkey milk because there isn’t enough casein in their milk to produce quality cheese. The Balkan donkey milk is mixed with goat’s milk so that 50 percent of the cheese is donkey’s milk and 40 percent is from goats.

1. Cabrales Blue Cheese: 6,675 Dollars Per Pound

A wheel of Cabrales Blue Cheese was sold at auction in 2023 for over 32 thousand dollars. It originates from the Picos de Europa National Park by Cabrales in Spain. Guillermo Pendas is the creator, and he makes it at Los Puertos Factory which is owned by his family.

This cheese is made from a combination of goat, cow, and sheep milk that has matured for over 8 months. Its place of maturation is a special cave because it is at an altitude of around 4600 feet. As a result of this high altitude, the cave stays at a cool 44 degrees Fahrenheit the entire time the cheese is present.

Ivan Suarez bought this expensive wheel of Cabrales Blue Cheese because he is a restauranteur. His restaurant is in Asturias, and it’s named the Llagar de Colloto.

Cabrales Blue Cheese made by other producers in the region commands a much lower price. Usually, the cheese is available for about 20 dollars per pound.