When I lose cheeses in the back of my fridge, they rarely emerge the better for it. Once or twice, I’ve unintentionally improved an uncut wheel by forgetting I had it, but I generally prefer to leave the aging to the experts. Even they can be surprised by what happens. The Swiss cheese pictured above was a happy accident. Wheels misplaced in the creamery’s cellar and discovered months later had evolved in spectacular fashion. The cheese didn’t get dryer, as one would have expected. It got creamier.

Many cheese enthusiasts know Red Witch, the paprika-dusted Swiss wheel with a broomstick-riding hag on the label. Developed in 2008 for Carnevale, when Swiss revelers don goofy costumes and masks, the cheese took off in the U.S. when the importer thought to link it to Halloween. Despite the name, Red Witch is serious cheese, resembling a fine Appenzeller, and it now has a year-round following.

I only recently encountered its more mature sibling, Old Witch (above). This is the cheese that wasn’t supposed to happen. But when cheesemaker Christian Oberli stumbled on some forgotten Red Witch wheels in his cellar, he was astonished by their transformation. They should have been dry, even bitter. Yet they almost seemed to have gotten younger.

Intrigued, he began experimenting with extra aging for Red Witch, which is typically released at about four months. Old Witch, which debuted in 2017, is exactly the same cheese, just four months older and without the external paprika. At three months, the wheels are evaluated and the batches deemed to have aging potential are set aside. They are moved to a cellar with higher humidity—where Oberli ripens his raclette—and spend another five months there.

“Any other cheese would become more brittle, and more pronounced on the salt,” says importer Caroline Hostettler. “This one almost goes the opposite way. It’s at least as creamy as the younger cheese, if not more. Not even the cheesemaker can explain that.”

Old Witch is a 13- to 14-pound wheel made with the raw milk of 13 farms, all within 10 miles of the creamery. Oberli adds cream to the milk, but the finished wheel is comparable in fat to Appenzeller or Gruyère. For the curd nerds, the fat in dry matter is 49 percent.

Apart from its remarkable lushness and silkiness, what grabs me in this cheese is an appetite-arousing aroma of roasted onions. I also get notes of omelet and roasted peanut but the onion leaps out. Who can resist this? Adding to Old Witch’s allure, the price is right: I paid $28.99 a pound, significantly less than what retailers are asking for comparable cheeses. A doppelbock, such as Ayinger’s Celebrator, is the perfect brew to pair with it. Wine lovers, open a Riesling.

Hostettler, a Swiss native who has lived in the U.S. for decades, deserves credit for finding and importing some of Switzerland’s finest cheeses. She has transformed the U.S. cheese counter with her discoveries. Hostettler began importing Old Witch before the pandemic but says the cheese has only recently begun to get traction. “It has been a real revelation,” she says. “We never have Old Witch that disappoints. It just doesn’t happen.”

Look for Old Witch at these retailers:

West Coast

Briar Patch (Auburn, CA)
Cal Fresh Market (Pismo Beach, CA)
The Cheese Shop (Carmel, CA)
Dedrick's (Placerville, CA)
Jimbo's (San Diego, CA)
Lunardi’s Market (multiple CA locations)
Market Hall Foods (Oakland, CA)
North Coast (Arcata, CA)
Nugget Market (multiple CA locations)
Woodlands Market (Tiburon, CA)

East Coast

BKLYN Larder (Brooklyn, NY)
The Cheese Shoppe (Latana, FL)
Cheese Wheel Village Market (Tiverton, RI)
Durham COOP (Durham, NC)
Gary’s Wine & Marketplace (multiple NJ locations)
Giordano Imports (Rochester, NY)
The Maplewood Wheelhouse (Maplewood, NJ)
Mazzaro's (St. Petersburg, FL)
Olsson's Fine Foods (Princeton, NJ)
Rind Cheese Shop (Barrington, RI)

Other

Agora Foods (Cleveland, OH)
Houston Dairymaids (Houston, TX)