Most expensive cheese sold at auction is €36,000 piece aged in a cave for 10 months
A prize-winning chunk of dairy became the most expensive cheese sold at auction when someone dropped an eye-watering €36,000 ($42,232; £30,843) on it.
The cheese was sold by the Regulatory Council DOP Cabrales (Spain) at an auction in Cabrales, Asturias, Spain, on 25 August 2024.
And they’re no strangers to expensive cheese, with this being the third time they’ve claimed this title.
They previously sold pricey cheeses for €20,500 ($22,787; £18,615) in 2019 and €2,474.04 ($2874.67; £2237.04) in 2018.
The latest dear dairy was created by Ángel Díaz Herrero cheese factory, which took first place in the auction of 'Mejor Queso del Certamen', which means 'Best cheese of the competition', and was put on the auction block.
This was the competition’s 52nd year.
The record-breaking auction was held after a prestigious jury spent the morning tasting the cheeses put forward by 15 different factories.
Each of them submitted their best products – both in batches and individual pieces – in the hope of taking the top prize.
Maín cheese factory took third place and Valfríu cheese factory finished second in the individual category.
And in the batch category, Maín came third, Ángel Díaz Herrero cheese factory were second and Valfríu finished first for the third year in a row.
The annual auction of the winning individual cheese is always a big deal, and nine different catering establishments from all over Spain took part in the bidding war.
The auction started at €3,000 and a total of 40 bids were placed.
The auction was won by El Llagar de Colloto, whose owner, Iván Suárez, raised the bid to €36,000.
For context, with that kind of cash you could buy yourself a Rolex watch or a brand-new convertible Mini Cooper.
Suárez’s purchase also meant he won the auction for the fifth consecutive year.
This auction is a well-established tradition in Cabrales, and throughout Asturias. The first ever one took place at the 25th edition of the contest under a sealed bid.
That first piece was won by the restaurant El Ñeru in Madrid, which paid 100,000 pesetas (approximately €600 in today’s money).
This latest record-breaking cheese weighed approximately 2.3 kg. It was made with cow’s milk and aged for 10 months in the Los Mazos cave at almost 1,500 metres above sea level.
The Ángel Díaz Herrero cheese factory was founded three decades ago in the village of Tielve, Cabrales, by the now-retired Ángel Díaz Herrero.
His wife, Encarni Bada, now runs the business, producing around 10,000 kg of Cabrales cheese every year.