A comment by my brother wondering about what's in that smoky liquid that my Jarlsberg was dipped in to give it a brown coating got me thinking about how cheese is coloured.
As a kid, I remember being somewhat blown away to find out that Cheddar wasn't naturally orange. Wish I'd know about this website back then. I just accepted that it was dyed orange with chemicals but it turns out the reason for that colour isn't artificial, rather it's due to the addition of a pigment made from the "bright red outer covering of the seeds of a tropical plant." A few drops of vegetable dye made from Bixin (or, Annatto, after the Spanish word for the stuff) and your creamy-white cheese will gain "an appetizing yellow color," as one sales pitch for this cheese additive claims.
According to this website, you can add wine during the cheese-making process for flavour and/or colour. Cheese can also be soaked in red wine for a day or so, which will colour the exterior of the cheese (and, not surprisingly, infuse it with the flavour of the wine).
As for smoked cheeses, a brown exterior can be achieved the Jarlsberg way* (i.e. dip cheese in "smoky liquid") or the "old-fashioned" way, as employed by Teddington Cheese (and presumably other cheese makers). When smoking its cheddar, they first cut the cheese into wedges (because "the flavours can only penetrate a small way into the cheese") and then they place the wedges into "an oak fired smoke house for 6 hours," a process that not only infuses it with smokiness but turns the outside of the cheese "a fabulous chesnut brown colour."
* I tried to find out what's in the smoky liquid but no luck - anyone know?
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