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The Ultimate Bucket List of Global Cheese Events
- Madison
- Aug 13, 2025
- 5 min read
Sure, you could travel for the museums, the landmarks, the beaches… but let’s be honest: if there’s cheese involved, suddenly the trip feels urgent.
When you’re on the road—whether it’s halfway across the globe or just a few hours from home—sampling local food is more than just eating. It’s culture, it’s tradition, and in the case of cheese, it’s pure joy on a cracker. Some places take this to the next level, hosting entire festivals dedicated to the world’s favorite dairy delight. These events aren’t just about indulging your inner cheese goblin—they support local makers, boost tourism, and keep food traditions alive (all while giving you the perfect excuse to eat your body weight in brie).
From award-winning showdowns to small-town charm, here are some of the cheesiest—literally—celebrations worth packing your bags for.
Imagine an international cheese tasting contest with over 4,000 entries from 40+ countries. That’s the World Cheese Awards, organized by the Guild of Fine Food, which rotates its location yearly—past stops include Viseu, Portugal, and Bern, Switzerland.
A panel of experts evaluates cheeses across five milk categories (goat, ewe, cow, buffalo, and mixed) on taste, texture, consistency, and color. They award everything from 1 Star to the coveted Super Gold, which is the creme de la creme. Around 100 cheeses reach the semi-finals, but only one takes home the crown.
If you attend, you’re not just watching judges nibble—you get to shop at lively markets, join cheese tours, catch cooking demos, and soak up live entertainment. Past Super Gold winners include luxurious truffle-infused goat cheese, deeply aged Gouda, and an additive-free caramelized brown cheese from Tokyo’s Tama District. Truly, cheese royalty.
Down under, cheese meets chill vibes at Mould, a festival organized by Revel Events since 2017. Held simultaneously in cities like Melbourne, Sydney, Brisbane, Perth, and Adelaide, Mould showcases 50 to 100 world-class Australian artisan cheeses alongside honey, salami, crackers, and other charcuterie essentials.
With over a million cheese samples served annually, this is a dream for Aussie cheesemongers and cheese-lovers alike. You’ll find not only classic cheeses but gems like Harvey Cheese’s buffalo blue and buffalo brie. Bonus: attendees get a free cooler bag for their purchases, plus access to bars with a wide liquor selection and cheesy merch. Kids under 18 enter free, making it a family-friendly fiesta.
California’s cheese scene is impressively diverse, boasting fresh cheeses like ricotta and burrata, soft varieties like Brie and Red Hawk, and hard cheeses like aged Gouda and Dry Jack. The California Artisan Cheese Festival, launched in 2007, celebrates all of it over three days at locations like Petaluma, Sebastopol, and Santa Rosa.
More than 100 producers showcase their craft alongside premium vinegar, jam, chocolate, wine, cider, beer, honey, and olive oil—the perfect cheese companions. The festival offers farm and producer tours, an interactive cheese crawl (yes, a crawl but with cheese and wine!), plus seminars on cheesemaking and pairing with chocolate, beer, and wine. You can also master charcuterie board styling from the pros. And yes, you leave with a complimentary tote bag filled with goodies.
Nestled in the scenic Piedmont region, the charming town of Bra is a hub of Slow Food principles—think organic farming, biodiversity, local traditions, and a strong bond between producers and consumers.
Every two years, Bra hosts the Bra Cheese Festival for four days in September, focusing on a different theme each edition. For example, the 2025 festival celebrated cheeses made exclusively from raw milk. Since its 1997 debut, the festival draws 270,000+ visitors eager to taste artisanal cheese and engage with herders, cheesemakers, craft brewers, and street food pros from Italy and beyond.
Ontario’s biennial cheese fest shines a spotlight on the province’s finest handcrafted cheeses and gourmet treats. “I’ve watched a growing appetite for more: more handcrafted cheeses, soulful bakery delights, bold Ontario wines, rich chocolates, and the kind of foods that make your taste buds dance,” says organizer Patricia McDermott.
The festival offers everything from cheese pairing seminars and tastings to cheesemaking classes for kids, an interactive “science of tasting” session, live music, and even a petting zoo with a milking simulator (perfect for the little ones). Featured vendors include cheddar specialists, raw milk dairies, and creative cheese soaked in local wines.
Mild or fiery, cheese and chili peppers make for a perfect pair, celebrated since 2014 at the UK’s Cheese and Chilli Festival. This traveling event attracts 5,000–10,000 visitors to sample top cheeses and spicy chili products across four locations.
Expect lively trade stands, cooking demos, wrestling matches, mini golf, bubble parties, magic shows, and more. It’s family-friendly with free entry for kids under 16 and pet-friendly too—because who can resist cheese and spice?
Wisconsin is “America’s Dairyland,” home to over 6,500 dairy farms and 126 cheese plants, producing 26% of the country’s cheese. The Great Wisconsin Cheese Festival, launched in 1988, is a three-day June celebration in Little Chute, a Dutch heritage village famous for Gouda and Edam cheeses.
The event features cheese curd eating contests, cheese carving, gourmet mac and cheese tastings, carnival rides, live music, parades, runs, and kids’ games. Plus, it’s raised nearly $2 million for local projects—a festival with heart and flavor.
Travel to Gouda, Netherlands, from April to August, and you’ll find a weekly Thursday morning cheese market that’s been a tradition since 1395. The market offers a nostalgic vibe with horse-drawn carriages and vendors in traditional dress selling wheels of the famous Gouda cheese.
Known for its creamy, mildly sweet profile, Gouda is a kitchen all-star. What better place to sample it than its birthplace?
Pag Island in the Adriatic is famous for its sun-drenched beaches, seafood, and cultural events—but cheese lovers know it for Paski sir, a sheep’s milk cheese requiring nearly 4 gallons of milk for one block. Winner of a 2016 World Cheese Awards Super Gold, this cheese is the star of the Kolan Cheese Festival.
Held the last Friday in August, the event showcases 64 farm producers and two dairy plants, alongside top-notch Croatian prosciutto, honey, and olive oil vendors.
Le Salon du Fromage et des Produits Laitiers, held every two years at Paris’s Porte de Versailles, is a three-day showcase for hundreds of premium cheeses and dairy products from France and beyond.
With 8,500 visitors, the event includes tastings, expert-led workshops, grilled cheese challenges, and the coveted “coup de coeur” awards for exceptional cheeses. Recent winners include a dill-flavored goat cheese and a fruity Gruyère perfect with honey.
Plymouth claims the title “Cheese Capital of the World,” producing 14% of U.S. cheese consumption. The annual Cheese Capital Festival, held the last weekend of June, offers cheese and car parades, eating contests, a foam cheese wedge river race, bounce houses, face painting, live music, and farm-themed playgrounds.
Family-friendly with free milk and dairy swag, this event is all about celebrating cheese culture with community spirit.
Not to be confused with Ontario’s festival, the Great Canadian Cheese Festival returned in 2025 after an eight-year break. It continues the tradition of bringing together artisanal cheese producers, pairing workshops, and live entertainment in a fun, inclusive atmosphere.
So… What’s Your Next Cheese Adventure?
Whether you crave rich and creamy, tangy and funky, or sweet and nutty, these global cheese events offer a chance to taste, learn, and celebrate. And hey, what better excuse to book that trip than cheese?
Remember: the next time you’re planning a getaway, think beyond sightseeing—think cheesing your way through the world’s most delicious festivals. Your taste buds will thank you.
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