I don’t quite get it, but not everyone loves the same cheeses I do. Those beefy, concentrated alpine cheeses I adore can strike some folks as over the top. “Too much flavor” is one critique I’ve heard but could never imagine saying myself. If you tend to like cheeses that show a bit more restraint, this Swiss beauty may be for you. It’s a little younger than many comparable mountain cheeses, and while I don’t find it remotely lacking in aroma or flavor, it’s not as in-your-face as some.

“It’s not clobbering you,” agreed Joe Salonia, the U.S. representative for Gourmino, a collective of Swiss cheesemakers. “It’s a good starter cheese, with starter pricing.” I found it for $21 a pound.

Jùscht (pictured above) is a five-month-old wheel made by Fritz Baumgartner, who mostly makes Emmentaler. Neighboring farms still deliver raw milk to his mountain creamery in old-style milk cans. Like all Emmentaler producers, Baumgartner receives a production quota and is not allowed to make more—a state-sanctioned way of keeping the price up. With excess milk, he makes other cheeses, one of which is Jùscht.

Baumgartner is the sole producer of Jùscht but he didn’t invent it; he adopted the cheese when Jùscht’s creator retired. He kept the name, which, in local dialect, refers to a righteous person—like a mensch—or to something that is simple and good. When the 14-pound wheels are still young, they’re transferred to Gourmino’s mountain caves—former military bunkers connected by tunnels—and matured there by experts.

Gourmino’s website describes Jùscht as “fresh and richly milky,” reminiscent of “muesli milk and waffles.” The wedge I purchased was more robust than that. It had a slightly damp, tacky rind; a firm interior and that deep roasted-onion aroma typical of many alpine cheeses. The salt was on the high side, but a slice of bread tamed that.

Based on the website description, I think my wedge may have been from a more mature wheel because that pleasing browned-onion flavor persisted. All in all, the cheese left me with a highly savory impression—not the gentle sweetness I expected from the reference to cereal milk. To me, the atypical feature was the sturdy texture; most Swiss mountain cheeses of this type are a bit silkier and creamier on the tongue.

Look for Jùscht retailers here. Chill a bottle of Pinot Gris, slice a baguette and let me know what you think.

A reader commenting on last week’s post on well-priced Cheddars suggested that it might pay to buy young Cheddar and age it yourself in the fridge. A Wisconsin dairy scientist who saw that suggestion quickly weighed in with a thumb’s down.

“Unfortunately, that’s a bad idea and often leads to disaster,” wrote Dean Sommer, a senior scientist with the Center for Dairy Research at the University of Wisconsin. “Milder Cheddars are made differently than Cheddars meant for aging. They typically have higher moistures and slightly lower salts than Cheddars made for aging. Trying to age mild Cheddars is asking for soft, pasty textures and bitter and unclean flavors. Cheese does not age the same in consumer-sized packages in a home refrigerator as it does in a commercial 40-pound block in a controlled cheese aging cooler.”

Bottom line: Let’s leave the cheese aging to the experts.