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6 Fourme d’Ambert vs. 16 Caerphilly. Fourme d’Amb is the chocolate of blue cheeses. It melts all over the tongue with a captivating sweetness and beckons blue-haters to the dark side. Caerphilly, meanwhile, is just plain weird: its white and yellow center smells like steamed asparagus, and, back in the day, the Welsh cheese was thought to protect miners’ lungs from coal dust. Yet, there’s just something about it…

Both cheeses attract thrill-seekers, but Caerphilly is more of a freak magnet than the genteel d’Ambert, and might be able to convince enough voters that it’s way more than just a sideshow. One of us! One of us!

9 Raclette vs. 13 Ardrahan. I can’t say how this one will go; Raclette is the more recognizable name, maybe, but it’s also…well, it’s a pain in the ass to serve and eat, in my opinion, so voters familiar with both may choose Ardrahan because the Raclette round leaked last time and bunged up their tablecloths. …Oh, that’s just me, then? Okay: Ardrahan is to my mind the better-rounded cheese, but we’ll see.

7 Banon vs. 4 Garrotxa. I won’t know how to vote this pairing until I click the radial button, and I have no idea which cheese will prevail. Banon’s Wikipedia entry describes it as, among other things, “fierce,” and I’d have to agree. I’m a big fan of both, but Garrotxa seems like the more approachable taste to me, although Banon’s fans really really love it. Garrotxa by a nose, I think.

8 Fiore Sardo vs. 14 Valdéon. A cheese that smushes goat and sheep milk together, shoots it full of blue, and wraps it in sycamore leaves is a rarity, and should school Pecorino Romano’s Sardinian equivalent. Yet Valdéon is an acquired, backdoor taste, whereas Fiore Sardo is safer and more comfortable, especially when dribbled over pasta with young olive oil. The risk-takers out there will scream their lungs out for Valdéon, but not enough of them. Fiore Sardo will be cutting down the basket in this game.

3 Pleasant Ridge Reserve vs. 15 Pau. Pleasant Ridge is one of those under-sung cheeses that manages to redefine American cheese. Made in Dodgeville, Wisconsin, Pleasant Ridge looks at the French mountain cheeses it apes and nods, “I can do you one better.” And it does. Nutty, rich, and sharp, award-winning Pleasant Ridge will have no problem telling stinky and sweet Spanish Pau to get the hell out of Dodge.

11 Monte Enebro vs. 1 Mt. Tam. Triple-creamed with a velvety white rind, Mt. Tam just might be California’s answer to Brie. However, as butter-perfect as Mt. Tam is, Monte Enebro’s perfectly smooth, delicately citrusy white pate is vastly more sophisticated and complex. Fairly new to the scene and often hard to come by, Monte Enebro has snob appeal, which gives it a goat-leg up in this head-to-head.

2 Burrata vs. 12 Idiazabal. Burrata is such a wonderful cheese, like a little creamy cloud in your mouth. (That came out pornily; you know what I mean.) I’m more impressed by Idiazabal in its various iterations, but it’s not as versatile as Burrata and may not have the recognition quotient it needs to survive this round. We could see an upset, but I think Burrata passes through without breaking a sweat.

10 Fromage Blanc vs. 5 Cashel Blue. Weird face-off — the only thing the cheeses have in common is names containing colors, really — and I’ve got a healthy respect for an herb-infused fromage blanc’s powers to amaze and delight, but Cashel Blue is my favorite cheese in the bracket. Velvety, sticky, BFFs with my father’s white-wine sangria, by rights the Cashel should stomp the serviceable but unimposing fromage blanc. But will it? A blue cheese is like raisins, in that people who hate it capital-H hate it, but it’s my sense that anyone who’s tasted Cashel will push it through this time.

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