Once again, the best cheese in America is Canadian.
Québec’s Fromagerie La Station won top honours at this year’s American Cheese Society Judging & Competition, one of the continent’s most prestigious cheese contests, for its Alfred Le Fermier.
The Best of Show winner is an Alpine-style raw cow’s milk cheese with a yellow-orange hue on the rind that carries notes of flowers and hazelnuts.
The farmstead creamery also earned Best in Show in 2024 for its Raclette de Compton au Poivre: a raclette-style melting cheese with a pink peppercorn line running through the centre.
Fromagerie La Station started making cheese in 2004 and is currently run by the Bolduc brothers: Martin, Simon-Pierre, and Vincent. Simon-Pierre Bolduc makes the cheese, while Martin Bolduc tends the cows. The farm boasts 140 Canadian Holsteins, with all milk going to cheese production.
Alfred Le Fermier is named after their great grandfather, Alfred Bolduc. It was initially made by Carole Bolduc, the brothers’ mother, who initially launched Fromagerie La Station as a retirement hobby farm. Alfred Le Fermier has since become the creamery’s signature cheese.
Cheese sommelier Jackie Armet worked with me from the very beginning of The Great Canadian Cheese Festival and then the Canadian Cheese Awards as Cheese Co-ordinator in charge of all things cheese. She considers Alfred Le Fermier a staple, like cheddar.
“It’s woodsy, with hazelnut flavours and a flowery finish. It can be used in any recipe that calls for cheese. But I do prefer most cheese straight up on a cheese board. That‘s the best way to enjoy it.”
The cheese proudly carries the name of the family’s great grandfather, Alfred Bolduc. Alfred Le Fermier symbolizes a family tradition whose mission is to cultivate the soil, live on it and hand it down to future generations in even better condition.
- La Station website: https://fromagerielastation.com/en/
- Complete 2025 American Cheese Society Judging & Competition results
—Georgs Kolesnikovs
Georgs Kolesnikovs, cheesehead-in-chief at CheeseLover.ca, has hardly ever met a cheese he didn’t like. Well . . . hardly ever.
