by Austin Coe Butler
Like the vegetable world, cheese, too, follows the seasons. Spring brings the first, fresh cheeses like mushroomy bries with their ramp-like aromas and bone-white chèvres with their bright tang of mint, rhubarb, and radishes. Summer brings with it sweet, milk-laden mozzarella, juicy like a tomato, and the first aged cheeses. Alpines and Cheddars ripen with apples on autumn days, and as the weather cools, the flavors warm. Long winter nights settle in, and the bold, savory melters like Raclette are brought to the fire, truckles of Stilton are cracked open, and decadent, woodsy wheels of spruce-girdled Rush Creek Reserve, Winnimere, and Vacherin Mont d’Or are scooped from their rinds. Some cheeses are ephemeral, having only one season, while others have several. Among the greatest cheeses that follows its own seasons is Grayson.
Grayson is a humble, smear ripened cheese made by Meadow Creek Dairy in Galax, Virginia nestled in the southwestern Appalachian. Its rubrous hue and square shape immediately evoke Taleggio and other smear ripened cheeses. These smear ripened cheeses, soft cheeses that are “washed” in or smeared with a morge or brine, are celebrated for their funky, briny, meaty flavors, and their pungent aromas. There’s a good reason why: bacteria only found in marine environments are inexplicably found on these cheeses, along with various species of Brevibacterium, a genus of bacteria that thrive in damp, salty environments like smear ripened cheeses or… your feet! Grayson has all these flavors in its unique way. It is beefy, barn-yardy, and runny, with some of its best wheels reminding me of heavily larded refried pinto beans. But this is a description of winter Grayson. Summer Grayson is delectably different.
The folks at Meadow Creek Dairy are real American artisans. The Feete family began making cheese in 1998, and ever since then they’ve shown a dedication to their cows and their craft. Their cows are always on pasture, never confined, and they only graze on grass. They follow active grazing practices, rotating the cows from one pasture to the next to avoid overgrazing. Meadow Creek Dairy also keeps a closed herd of Jersey cows bred over the past thirty years specifically for their postage stamp of land in the Virginia highlands. Their cheesemakers work with minutes old milk that comes into the creamery straight from the milking parlor, and they let the raw, Jersey milk shine. All of Meadow Creek’s cheeses have a hallmark, vibrant, beta-carotene rich color from that beautiful milk. Meadow Creek celebrates the seasonal nature of their milk and cheese.
So while winter Grayson is stronger in flavor and softer in texture, summer Grayson is milder, tangier, firmer, and springier. The aroma is subtle, like yeasted bread, or the foamy head of an unfiltered beer. The flavors are bright, salty, and milky, while the paste retains a lovely buoyant bounce in the center and a supple creamline. Because of its milder nature, summer is a great time to try Grayson if you haven’t before or are unfamiliar with smear ripen cheeses. It can be paired alongside crisp whites and medium bodied reds, but it really deserves to be paired alongside a perspiring glass of frothy or Hefeweizen in the summer sun.
There’s always a hiatus with Grayson in the spring. The winter’s batches have been consumed, and while the cows rest and the grass grows, we wait. With the return of Grayson, we know summer has arrived! To celebrate its arrival with summer we’ll be sampling this cheese all weekend long, so stop by the shop to pick up a wedge!