Will a funky 100 year old root cellar impart any undesirable flavors to a waxed cheese?  I was thinking of creating a box with an open end for air circulation covered by hardware cloth to keep the mice out.  Then putting that in the root cellar.  I’m new at cheesemaking.

I’m fairly new to cheesemaking too, but I’ve used our wellhouse/root cellar to age cheeses in for a couple of years.  The flavor was MUCH better than in the cheeses I meant to age in our fridge in my first year making cheese, and I didn’t notice any off-flavors reminiscent of the root cellar smell.  However, I had a lot of trouble with mold. (No surprise there—mold tends to grow on the walls in the wellhouse, which I guess means the humidity is good.)  This year I’m thinking about using a dedicated fridge instead.

Waxed cheeses can not be externaly affected. They need only adequate temperature, humidity doesn’t count.

If its well coated then its fine (the cheese).