Gruyere (Lidl ‘Deluxe’ Reserve)
Christmas is a wonderful time of year for cheese and the expanded selection on offer at Lidl prompted a mini-cheese night with the family featuring 6 of the cheeses you can pick up right now!
We start this series of reviews with a look at the “Deluxe Reserve Gruyere”. Rated as a strength 4 (equivalent to a mature cheddar) and boasting a sweet, nutty caramel flavour. Certainly a bold claim with seemingly a lot to cram in to one cheese. First impressions were that the cheese has a pleasant smooth texture. With the cheese not long out of the fridge, however, the taste was perhaps somewhat underwhelming given the strength. The sweet flavour was difficult to pick out – the flavour was certainly not unpleasant but I had expected more. Once the cheese had rested for about 15/20 minutes, the flavour did start to show promise. The caramel notes began to emerge and for a hard cheese it offers a nice balance of smooth and tactile for stand-alone consumption. The rind is also edible and the cheese at the edges does often deliver a little more flavour.
The price comes in at £1.33 per 100g which is certainly a palatable price for a nice cheese. I feel the cheese works best enjoyed alone. A strip cut off makes for a nice little snack but when used as an ingredient it becomes a little too anonymous for my taste. With the rest of family rating it 5/10 across the board probably sums it up – good but not inspiring. Personally I think it deserves a little higher and have rated it as such. Certainly worth considering for your Christmas cheeseboard as it does have potential to offer something a little different. There may be better Gruyeres out there but at this price you can’t go too far wrong.
RATING – 6.5
MY RECOMMENDATION – Leave the cheese to stand out of the fridge for about 10 minutes to bring out a bit more of the flavour!
Consummate copious consumer of cheese. Lover of a good strong cheddar!
Sounds like it could be worth leaving this to warm up a fair bit more. Excessively chilled Gruyere can be really dull and tedious – really needs to be nice and warm to get that nutty autumnal flavour!
Agree about using it as an ingredient, though. IMO people are too keen to waste good Gruyere in cooking – that just loses a lot of the complexity of taste of a delicious solitary cheese.