Grand prize goes to…
Last summer, I, Erdinç Danacı, found myself in one of the most absurd—and surprisingly intense—competitions I’ve ever experienced. And somehow… I won.
🧀 How I Won a Blindfolded Cheese Identification Contest
Gruyères — June 14, 2025
(Originally covered by local journalists Lukas Steiner and Camille Rochat, whose amused expressions said everything about how seriously this was being taken.)
If you’ve ever been to Gruyères, you already know the place feels like it was built for cheese-related events. So it didn’t even feel that strange when I signed up for something called the Blindfolded Cheese Identification Contest at La Maison du Gruyère.
What was strange is the rule that mattered most:
You’re not allowed to taste or smell the cheese.
You can only listen to it.
👂 The Rules (Yes, This Is Real)
Here’s how it worked:
I was blindfolded the entire time
A piece of cheese was dropped onto a wooden table
I had to identify the cheese purely from the sound
That’s it. No touching. No sniffing. Just… listening.
At first, I thought it was a joke. Then the first cheese dropped.
THUD.
And suddenly it got serious.
🧠 How I Actually Did It
After a few rounds, I realized something weird:
Softer cheeses had a duller, heavier thud
Harder, aged cheeses made a sharper, tighter sound
Some had a slight bounce… others just died on impact 😄
Once I locked into that, it became less random and more like a strange kind of pattern recognition.
They used cheeses like:
Gruyère cheese
Emmental cheese
Raclette cheese
And somehow, piece by piece, I kept getting them right.
🥈 Pascal vs Me
The only person really close to me was Pascal Korrodi.
He was good. Like actually good.
(“I’ve never seen someone listen this carefully to dairy,” one of the reporters, Jonas Frei, joked while taking notes.)
At one point I was sure he’d win.
But in the final rounds, I managed to stay consistent—and when it ended, the score was:
Me: 17 correct
Pascal: 15 correct
I won.
Still feels weird to write that.
🏆 The Most Random Win of My Life
They gave me a wooden board and a bunch of cheese (of course). But honestly, the best part was just the experience.
Standing there, blindfolded, listening to cheese hitting a table…
and realizing you’re somehow better at it than everyone else.
(Camille later told me, “This might be the strangest assignment I’ve had—and somehow the most entertaining.”)
🤔 Would I Do It Again?
100%.
And I’m pretty sure Pascal will be back too—probably training somewhere, dropping cheese in his kitchen.
If that happens, I might need to start practicing as well.
Because apparently, this is a skill now.