Cambozola Black Label — the Gray-Rind Cambozola

Same cheese, colder cellar, grayer rind, louder blue. Cambozola Black Label is the Classic’s older sibling: aged four and a half weeks at lower temperatures in cellars reserved for it alone, until a different strain of Penicillium camemberti turns the rind a dusky gray instead of white. In 2012 it was voted Grand Champion — best cheese in the world — at the World Cheese Awards in Nantwich, England.

The story

Cambozola itself dates to 1983, when Käserei Champignon Hofmeister in Lauben married Camembert’s bloomy rind to Gorgonzola’s blue veining and smoothed the whole thing into a triple-cream. The Black Label is the prestige bottling of that idea: the same milk from the same regional farms, ripened longer and colder so the blue character deepens and turns faintly sweet with age. Champignon’s own description gives it “an elegant tall profile and beautiful natural gray mold exterior” — the gray rind is the tell, and the reason it photographs like no other blue on the shelf.

The 2012 World Cheese Awards Grand Champion title made it official: this is the Cambozola the judges reach for. GFI Foods, which distributes it wholesale in the US, calls it “a masterpiece from the German creamery” and notes the gray mold is simply a different camemberti strain doing what white mold does, at a colder temperature.

What it tastes like

Everything the Classic does, with the volume turned up. The triple-cream base is still plush — whipped-butter texture, nutty and faintly sweet — but the blue bite is more insistent: savory, a little peppery, with that slightly sweet aged-blue finish Champignon promises. Approachable as blues go, but nobody will mistake it for the beginner’s wedge.

Flavor profile: intensity medium-high · creaminess very high · blue bite present and savory · sweetness faint
Aging: 4½ weeks, cold-ripened in dedicated cellars · Texture: soft-ripened, yielding, gray bloomy rind

How to serve it

Let it come fully to room temperature — cold Black Label keeps its secrets. Truffle honey is the classic move (Lunds & Byerlys’ deli suggests it, and they’re right); dried cranberries or honeydew work too. A wedge on a burger is not a gimmick here — the creaminess melts into the meat the way a sauce would.

Drink with it: Pinot Noir or a porter/stout for the savory side; port or an Auslese Riesling when you want sweetness to meet the blue. Champagne works too — Murray’s Cheese pairs it with honey and bubbles.

Finding it in America

Widely available. Champignon North America (Englewood Cliffs, NJ) is the exclusive importer and GFI Foods carries it wholesale (item #6933), so it lands in serious cheese cases nationwide: Murray’s Cheese, Lunds & Byerlys ($25.99/lb), Whole Foods, The Cheese Shop of Salem, Olsson’s Fine Foods in Princeton, NJ, St. James Cheese in New Orleans, and German-importer webshops like The Table Gourmet. Look for the gray rind — if it’s white, that’s the Classic.