L'amuse Signature Two-Year Gouda: An Unexpected Marriage

by Sophia Stern

Why we love the cheese 

 It’s rare for a gouda aged for as long as L’Amuse Signature to have such a wonderful texture without compromising flavor. The paste is full of satisfying, crunchy crystals, but isn’t too firm or too dry. The addictive flavors of caramel and butterscotch are balanced with the cheese’s acidity, preventing this gouda from eating too sweet.  

Why we love the wine 

Champalou Vouvray is an elegant and highly drinkable wine. Made by a couple who come from a long lineage of winemakers, this 100% Chenin Blanc Loire Valley wine is acidic and bright, with notes of pear and green apple. There’s just enough earthy complexity to round the wine out, offering a smooth and delicious drinking experience.  

Why we love the pairing 

A white wine and an aged gouda are not the most common pairing, but we promise this really works. The slightly surprising acidity of the gouda mellows the acidity of the Vouvray. The dry wine also rounds out the sweeter notes in the cheese, without erasing them. And most importantly, the body of the wine allows those craveable crystals to continue to crunch.  

What else you should do with it   

Our favorite way to enjoy this gouda is with a drizzle of caramel, preferably the Fat Toad Farm Goat’s Milk Caramel. If you want to go the extra mile, pair a bite of caramel and gouda with a spoonful of your favorite vanilla ice cream. 

Gouda

by Austin Coe Butler

After several years behind the France 44 cheese counter and talking with customers, I think I can make the following observation: our Dutch customers purchase the most cheese and in stately three or even four pound wedges. The Dutch love of dairy is long founded, and a typical Dutch breakfast is often a glass of milk, a slice of buttered toast, and chunk of cheese. Julius Caesar observed, with disdain, that the Dutch had no agriculture and merely ate the meat and milk of their animals (the hallmark signs of barbarism). But Dutch ingenuity led to the creation dykes and polders, plots of land claimed from the seafloor by the pumps in their windmills to create arable lands to graze animals and grow crops. Now, despite being the size of Maryland, the Netherlands’s is the second largest exporter of food after the United States. The ingenuity of the Dutch also lead to the creation of one of the world’s favorite cheeses: Gouda.

One of the earliest challenges for Dutch cheesemakers were “hoven,” or exploding, cheeses. Due to their northern latitude and maritime climate, the Netherlands has wet summers that prevent the curing of hay. Instead, the damp fodder collected in the field begins to ferment and turn to silage, which is fine for cows to eat, but the microbacteria responsible for this unwanted fermentation can pass into the milk and create off flavors in the cheese and even gas, causing cheeses to bulge and burst. English cheesemakers encountered a similar problem and responded by cheddaring cheeses, while the Dutch settled on a defining characteristic of goudas: secondary washing of the curd.

This process involves pouring off the whey from the curds and adding fresh, hot water to the vat. This fresh, hot water not only scalds the curd, driving out more whey and moisture but removes lactose, which lactic bacteria convert into lactic acid, and creates a milder, sweeter curd. Curd washing not only gives goudas their complex sweet flavors ranging from coconut milk and marzipan to butterscotch and aged soy sauce, but the drier texture that allowed wheels of Gouda to travel across the world when the Dutch were the leading European Empire in the 16th and 17th centuries.

Like many cheeses bearing the name of a place, Goudas were likely not invented in the town of Gouda (HOW-da), but they were certainly consumed by a lot of people passing through there. Back in the 12th century, Gouda was one of the few municipalities given the exclusive right to weigh and sell cheese and became a bustling trade hub. You can still visit its picturesque cheese market that is open on Thursdays to watch cheese traders in wooden klompen sell their wares. While no one in the shop wears wooden klompen (do Danskos count?), we are open every day and have an impressive selection of Goudas to choose from:

Our Selection of Goudas:

L’Amuse Brabander

A goat milk gouda that is easily our most popular goat cheese. The secondary washing of this gouda takes away that goat gaminess that some people dislike and leaves you with a mild tang and a coconut milk like creaminess and marzipan sweetness making it an excellent gateway into the world of goat cheeses. If you’re a fan of Midnight Moon, you must try Brabander!

Coolea

An Irish gouda of Dutch extraction. Made in the mountain village of Coolea in Co. Cork, Ireland, by the Willem family, this Gouda has a remarkable flavor and texture of toasted macadamia or Brazil nuts.

L’Amuse Signature Two-Year

A customer favorite loaded with crunchy tyrosine crystals and big brown butter and salted caramel flavors. In an act of true cheese brinkmanship, the opeleggers at Fromagerie L’Amuse in Amsterdam age this cheese in rooms with high heat and humidity to increase the metabolism of the microbes in the cheeses that create those crystals and huge, complex flavors.

Wilde Weide

A Platonic Gouda. Well balanced between the creamy, savory aspects of young Goudas and crystally, sweet flavors of aged Goudas, Wilde Weide ticks all the boxes for what you want in a Gouda. Wilde Weide is not just a Gouda, but holds the distinction of Boeerenkase or “Farm cheese,” meaning the cheese is made from organic raw milk in the historical artisanal manner on the farm the milk comes from. Jan and Roos van Schie live on their small three-hundred year old “island,” or polder, with their herd of 42 Montbeliard cows, their cheese, and no one else. Roos is a trained opera singer who serenades the cheese as they are “put it to bed” in the cellar to mature, and when the cheese “wakes up” Jan loads them onto a dingy and rows them to shore and takes them to market. A great story for a great cheese.

OG Kristal

Similar to the L’Amuse Signature Two-Year Gouda, but because of its shorter maturation period (18 month), it is creamier than the Two-Year, without skimping on the crunch. The candy apple red rinds are a staple of our shop, and usually when someone comes in asking about “the crystals” we steer them towards this cheese.

Old Farmdal

They send this cheese to the International Space Station! Necessity is the mother of invention, and it was during a shortage of OG Kristal (OGK) that the wizards at  Kaasboerderij’T Groendal (Kahss–BOOR-deh-LAY TRUN-dahl) in Belgium devised this recipe for a cheese like OGK but with a maturation time of only 9 months. The result is a cheese that is creamier than OGK, with a bit more of a milky tang.

Marieke Gouda

Marieke Penterman’s Gouda are loved throughout her adopted country of the United States. This Marieke Gouda we carry is our youngest Gouda and is ideal on sandwiches, melted, or simply snacked on. Its texture is springy and buoyant with bright, milky flavor.

Carles Roquefort

Maison Carles Roquefort 

Austin Coe Butler

Just in time for your holiday cheeseboards, we’re promoting two of the most celebrated and storied sheep’s milk cheeses France has to offer: Ossau-Iraty and Roquefort. Ossau-Iraty is a phenomenally creamy Basque sheep’s milk cheese with a lovely roasted chestnut sweet and savory balance. It’s undoubtedly a shop favorite, and I’ve written about it several times. With that in mind, I’d like to write to you about a cheese you may have had in the past and might fear, Roquefort.

Roquefort is a spicy, salty, sheep’s milk blue from Roquefort-sur-Soulzon in France’s southernmost region Occitanie. It was reputedly the favored cheese of Charlemagne, and is one of the several warring “Kings of Cheese,” alongside Parmigiano Reggiano, Stilton, and Brie de Meaux. The village of Roquefort-sur-Soulzon sits atop the Causse du Larzac, an immense limestone karst plateau. Owing to the dry, rocky limestone soil, the land is difficult to till and poor to farm. It is far better suited to the grazing of Lacaune sheep, whose meat, milk, and wool have provided all people needed for centuries. The karsts in the Causse du Larzac are labyrinthine tunnel systems that form in limestone as water dissolves the rock, creating sprawling hypogean landscapes like the Cambalou Caves where Roquefort is aged.

Four stories below the village, deep in the rock, the Combalou Caves have been converted into century old cellars. These cellars are cavernous and resemble a subterranean great hall of a Dwarven kingdom. Generation after generation, they have been maintained and built out with limestone bricks and massive wooden pillars for support. Wooden shelves laden with Roquefort stretch into the darkness of the caves.

The Combalou Caves are special due to the fleurines, or fissures, in the rock that allow the north winds to move through the caves. Dark, damp, and cool, it’s the ideal environment for cheese to follow its trajectory of controlled spoilage and encourage the metabolism of microbes that break down the cheese to thrive. Cheesemakers like Rogue River Creamery have gone so far as to imitate the climate of these caves, and Robin Congdon, the maker of Beenleigh Blue went so far as to bring material from the Combalou Caves to his own aging facility. But while these imitations yield incredible cheeses, none of these cheeses are quite the same as Roquefort. In fact, most blue cheeses, including Stilton, Gorgonzola, and Maytag are made with blue mold that originated from Roquefort and bears its name, Penicilium roqueforti. 

The apocryphal origin of Roquefort, and many other blue cheeses, it must be noted, goes something like this: a shepherd takes shelter in a cave to enjoy his meal of bread and cheese when he sees a beautiful woman. He forgets himself (and his lunch) and rushes off to pursue her. (In some stories the shepherd sees a band of bandits and flees.) Some time later he returns to the cave and finds his forlorn lunch now covered with blue mold. He decides to nibble on the cheese and is rewarded for his bravery. I don’t need to tell you this story is fake, not least of all because it rests upon the common misconception that blue mold originates or comes from inside a cave. P. roqueforti is found exclusively on plant and animal matter like wheat (bread) or the udder of a sheep (cheese). In fact, the majority of beneficial microflora found in cheese comes from the animal’s udder. Additionally, a 2019 study noted the absence of P. roqueforti from the Combalou caves. But the caves are ideal for the mold to reproduce and sporulate on cheese, breaking down the fatty acids in the cheese to create butyric acids that give Roquefort its signature spiciness. 

Roquefort is one of the oldest named cheeses mentioned in recorded history. Pliny referenced cheese from this region in 79 CE, but it’s not until 1070, when it is documented as a donation to a local monastery. Roquefort was the first cheese to receive legal protection in 1411 when King Charles VI, the Beloved or the Mad, depending on which of his moods or psychotic episodes you caught him in, granted the residents of Roquefort-sur-Soulzon the sole right of producing and ripening Roquefort cheese after a dispute with neighboring villages. This legal protection for a product made within a geographic designation was the inspiration for the Appelation d’Origine Contrôlée (AOC) system adopted by France in 1925 and later became the Protected Designation of Origin (PDO) scheme of the European Union. Roquefort now has several strict production guidelines, most importantly of which is that the cheese must be aged in the Combalou Caves.

The production of Roquefort is now a multi-million dollar industry. There are only seven producers, most notably Société, who produce 70% of Roquefort, Papilion, and Gabriel Coullet. Real estate in in the village is too expensive and there is simply no room to do anything except age cheese. Attempts to recreate the centuries old cellars have failed, so production space is coveted. There are only about 200 people who now live in Roquefort-sur-Soulzon.

If you have had Roquefort in the past it was likely made by one of the massive corporations. Industrial Roquefort can taste bitter, almost tinny or metallic, and it often turns people off from the cheese. I implore you to try our Roquefort, which is made by Maison Carles. Founded in 1922 and spanning three generations, Maison Carles is the smallest exporter of Roquefort. They still follow the traditions of making Roquefort, going so far as to buy loaves of wheat and rye bread from a local bakery to be left in the caves and become inoculated with P. roqueforti. This moldy bread is pulverized and used it as the inoculate for their cheese. All their cheese is made by hand, giving it a delicate creamy and crumbly texture that imitates the appearance of the Combalou Caves. Unlike other producers of Roquefort, Maison Carles strictly uses milk from their own farm. These practices are rewarded with a Roquefort that is subtler and creamier than any other Roquefort.

These traditional practices also saved them a massive headache. In the 1990s, food safety inspectors from the European Union arrived at the Combalou Caves and were appalled by what they found: cheese, wet and slippery, resting on porous wooden shelves coated with mold. Brussels issued a mandate for a switch to plastic shelving which all producers complied with except for Jacques Carles, the owner at the time, who claimed that wood was essential for the maturation of the cheese. He was vindicated when those who made the switch found the plastic shelving had a deleterious impact on the flavor of their Roquefort, and they all switched back to wood. Maison Carles is now run by Jacques’s daughter, Delphine, who is the only female maitre affineur in France.

You may be familiar with the pairing of Stilton and Port for the Holidays, but personally I prefer Roquefort and Banyuls, a dessert wine made just a few miles from Roquefort-sur-Soulzon on France’s southeastern coast. What grows together goes together. Use Roquefort to stuff your olives for the most decadent blue cheese olives you’ve ever had. Roquefort pairs exceptionally with the abundant variety of pears and apples in the markets and is right at home alongside some butter lettuce, walnuts, and pears in a salad. Roquefort is the perfect cheese to add to your holiday cheese board. Whereas many of our lovely holiday cheeses are rich and caramel sweet from their extra-aged profile, Roquefort brings a much needed spiciness and saltiness. Who knows, it may just be the thing that keeps you awake after your fourth mug of eggnog.

Any cheese you buy now will be in great shape for your Christmas cheese boards, so don’t delay and stop into the shop to beat the Holiday rush and save 15% off these two fabulous French sheep’s milk cheeses!

The Cheeses of Neal's Yard Dairy

Austin Coe Butler

Like British cheese in the 1970s, the little alleyway of London’s Covent Garden neighborhood known as Neal’s Yard was in a sorry state. Dilapidated and grown over with ivy, many of the buildings on Neal’s Yard had their windows smashed in or boarded up. The courtyard itself was littered with trash, infested with rats, and a lavatory for tramps. It was the perfect street to start an alternative wholefoods cooperative. At 2 Neal’s Yard, Nicholas Saunders decided to do just that. It was called simply Neal’s Yard Wholefoods Warehouse, and it sold a humble assortment of nuts, pulses, honey, and herbal remedies.

Saunders was an activist, writer, and entrepreneur, highly active in London’s alternative scene. Many of the alternative ideas Saunders believed in were eccentrically embodied in aspects of the business. Goods were priced transparently with individual charges for labor, packaging, and cost handwritten on them. A “human counterweight system” requiring the user(s) to hold onto a rope and leap from the second story window to haul goods from the street was used. There was a water powered clock on the shop’s frontage and a coin-operated animated wooden sculpture inside, both designed by Tim Hunkin.

Neal’s Yard Wholefoods Warehouse was an immediate financial success, and over the next three years an apothecary, bakery, flour mill, coffee shop, and dairy were added on. Many of these became successful businesses in their own right: the apothecary became Neal’s Yard Remedies, the coffee shop became Monmouth Coffee, and, of course, the dairy became not just Neal’s Yard Dairy, the premier cheese shop and wholesaler of British cheeses, but also Neal’s Yard Creamery.

Neal’s Yard Dairy (henceforth simply Neal’s Yard) was opened in the summer of 1979 under Randolph Hodgson. The hopes of the dairy were to make ice cream, Greek yogurt (the first to be sold in the UK), and soft cheeses. One of their first customers was none other than John Cleese, but on that morning they had only yogurt, and, in a surreal moment of life imitating art, they were unable to sell any cheese to Mr. Cleese. After the initial success of the ice cream in the summer, the dreary English winter soon snubbed sales, and Hodgson decided it might be wise to get some hard cheeses into the shop: Cheddar, Stilton, and Cheshire.

It was difficult to find traditional, farmstead cheeses being made in Britain at this time. Many of the rich territorial cheeses had gone extinct during the past century of war, industrialization, and regulation under the Milk Marketing Board. There were a handful of farmers still making artisanal cheese, but these cheeses were primarily sold locally. One had to know the right people and try the right cheese to find what real British cheese tasted like as opposed to factory produced Cheddar or commodity Wensleydale. Hodgson struck up a friendship with someone who could do just that, an eccentric, retired Major turned shopkeeper, Patrick Rance.

Rance lived one of those great twentieth century lives: Born at the end of the First World War, his father was a vicar to dairy workers in east London, and by the start of the Second World War Rance had been promoted to Major in the British Army at the age of 24. He took place in the battle of Anzio, served in intelligence in Vienna in the immediate post-war years, and could speak French, Polish, German, Italian, and Swedish, in addition to his hobbies as an amateur classical musicologist, lepidopterist, bacteriologist, and Shakespearian. He wore a signature monocle, an anachronism even for his time. Since childhood, he had a love of traditional British cheeses and wrote with the fervor and exaltation of a crusader about the value real British cheese had not just in terms of flavor, but culture as well. His books on British and French cheese remain some of the best written not just on cheese, but food at large. After the War, Rance bought a small store called Wells Shop in 1953 and grew its offerings of cheese. By the time Neal’s Yard was selling just Cheddar, Stilton, and Cheshire, Rance’s small Berkshire shop was selling over 200 varieties of cheese at this time, many of which were traditional, farmstead British cheeses that Rance personally drove hours to collect. Rance and Hodgson shared a mutual appreciation for each others passion and curiosity and were both eager to support real British cheese and the people making it.

It was in this endeavor, the pursuit and encouragement of family and fledgling farmstead cheesemakers, that Neal’s Yard excelled. Montgomery’s Cheddar and Appleby’s Cheshire, two of the finest British cheeses being produced today, were greatly popularized by Neal’s Yard. Neal’s Yard encouraged Joe Schneider in the creation of Stichelton and many other new cheesemakers who were trying to resurrect traditional cheeses or invent new ones. Their original, cramped Neal’s Yard shop has turned into shops at Covent Garden, Borough Market, Islington, and Bermondsey, in addition to impressive maturation facilities and a dedicated creamery. Their expert affinage is accompanied by vigilant tastings with notes of each and every batch of cheese they sell. As the premier exporter and champion of British and Irish cheeses, the benefits of their enthusiasm are shared with us as well. All of our British and Irish cheeses come from Neal’s Yard.

Stop by the shop this weekend to celebrate Neal’s Yard and the many fantastic British cheeses they provide us with!

We have a rotating selection of cheese from Neal’s Yard Dairy. Our current offerings include:

Cheddar

Isle of Mull Cheddar a clothbound Scottish Cheddar that is by turns spicy, boozy, and malty from the fermented grains from local distilleries the cows feast on or briny with an umami savoriness from the salty, rich pastures they graze on in the summer. This cheese is as wild as the rugged Isle it comes from.

Westcombe Cheddar is a veritable clothbound Somerset Cheddar. Bright, bold, grassy, with a supple buttery texture and a nice backbone of acidity.

Territorials

Gorwyd Caerphilly is a Welsh cheese made by the Trethowan brothers, who also produce Pitchfork Cheddar. Pronounced “GOR-with CARE-philly,” the velveteen, mushroomy rind on this cheese gives way to a rich cream line and a crumbly, lemony center. A minerally, yogurty brightness blends with flavors of earth, grass, and moss. It was popular among coalminers and farmers as the natural rind was ideal to hold with hands dirty from hard work.

Cornish Kern is a contemporary classic that stands out in the British pantheon of cheeses—it is a cooked, pressed Alpine-style cheese, with flavors that are by turns sweet and winey or savory like caramelized garlic. Owing to its make, it is matured sixteen months, much longer than traditional English cheeses. “Kern” means round in Cornish.

Coolea is an Irish gouda of Dutch extraction. It tends to be nutty not just in flavor but in texture, with the richness of macadamia nuts, hazelnuts, and almond meal that compliments the delicate brown butter sweetness.

Montgomery’s Ogleshield a Raclette-inspired cheese made of Jersey cow milk with a supple, fudgey paste and savory notes of fried, salted peanuts and chicken stock. When melted, the salinity comes to the fore and this cheese shines.

The Blues

Colston Basset Stilton is remarkably balanced blue owing to its delicate, handmade care and longer maturation period before being pierced to allow blue mold (Penicilium roqueforti) to bloom. Colston Basset Stilton has a luxuriant, silky taste of sweet cream. Skip the port and savor this with a brown ale.

Stichelton, an arguably more traditional form of Stilton, has a fungal, feral funk to it owing to the raw milk.

We Adopted An Alp!

by Austin Coe Butler

Adopt an Alp is a program designed to support the age-old practice of transhumance in Switzerland while being rewarded with some of the world’s best cheese! It was founded by Caroline and Daniel Hofstettler of Quality Cheese. I met Caroline last year during ACS Judging & Competition, and she is one of my favorite people in the world of Cheese, humble and affable with an incredible passion and sense of stewardship for her native Swiss cheeses.

Transhumance is one of the most ancient and fascinating practices, as I’ve written about many, many, many times before. For those of you unfamiliar with this time-worn tradition, it revolves around the migration of people and animals during the seasons, not limited to but often including, passage up into the highlands or mountains during the summer to graze on wild, pristine pastures before returning back down to the safety of the valleys at the start of autumn. This millennia old tradition is one of the most remarkable celebrations of all those things entwined in cheese: the people, the animals, the places, the seasons, the flavors, traditions, and cultures. With the rise of industrialized food systems, this time honored tradition has become harder to practice and the cheese made by it rarer to find. Transhumance is the tradition Caroline is preserving through the Adopt-an-Alp Program. And I’m happy to announce that so are we… and you! Yes, you reading this!

How? Adopt-an-Alp works like this: Caroline criss-crosses Switzerland finding the best cheesemakers she can on various mountains or Alps. Once she has a roster, she sends it to us, and we get to pour over the details and find the right producer and cheese for our customers. There are over 28 different Alps that you can adopt! Once we talk with Caroline and select an Alp, we place an order and the cheese travels from that Alp in Switzerland straight to us where we sell it to you!

This year we’ve adopted Alp Heuboden and the Tschudi family to sell their Glarner Alpkäse AOP! Alp Heuboden is located in the canton of Glarus, a small, exceptionally mountainous region in east central Switzerland. (A Swiss friend of mine jokes that one lives perpetually in shadow there because of how high the mountains and deep the valleys are, even for Switzerland!) Here on Alp Heuboden, the Tschudi family, comprised of three generations, including Fritz and Anna, the parents, and Peter and Annalies, Peter’s wife, the inheritors of the Alp, graze their cows and make cheese from June to September. Over the course of the summer, the family walks up the mountain with their herd of cows, goats, and pigs in tow from 4,000 feet to over 6,000 feet. The highest point of the Tschudi’s Alp, Oberstafel, is only reachable by foot, so in order to resupply provisions, laundry, equipment, and deliver cheese a helicopter(!) arrives once a week. Logistical challenges peak at this elevation, and Annelies is in control of planning, ordering, and cooking meals for a whole week for ten people!

Due to the isolation of Alp Heuboden, produced at a higher elevation and disconnected from any roads, an exception was made by the Glarner Alpkäse AOP board for the Tschudis. Typically for Glarner Alpkäse AOP, once a wheel of it is produced, it is immediately transported to the communal cellars of Glarona where Heinz Trachsel and his team of affineurs oversee the aging. Instead, the Tschudis are allowed to age their cheese in their own cellars until the end of the Alp season before being brought to the AOP caves.

This summer was an eventful one for the Tschudis as they moved a mobile saw to the Oberstafel. They will cut and mill wood from their own forest to begin a major rebuild of their chalet. Included in the project will be new barns for the calves and pigs, a chalet with a kitchen, a living room, and several private bedrooms (a big improvement on the current layout that is composed of two big rooms for the whole family), and new plumbing.

What else makes this cheese so special? Imagine you are walking up the steep incline of Alp Heuboden. You are winded from the thin, Alpine air and bend over to put your hands on your knees and catch your breath. There, among the grass, you see the heroes of this cheese, and the gems of the Alps come into focus in a dazzling display and diversity of herbs, flowers, and grasses: hawkweed and hyacinth, pastel primulas, purple cornflower, sprays of blue bellflower, angelica, and vetch, while the scent of bruised fragrant rock thyme, meadow sage, wild basil, and chives rise from under your boots. Foxglove, monk’s hood, orchids, lilies, and gentians shimmer and sway from cracks in the exposed rocks. These ephemeral, pristine pastures are what make the milk, and this cheese, exceptional.

What does the Tschudi’s Glarner Alpkäse taste like? It’s incredibly balanced, with flavors of hazelnut, chives, eggs, and smoky, sugar cured bacon, and a booziness that warms your cheeks and jaw. Its humble exterior conceals a deep straw colored paste, studded with fine tyrosine crystals. It’s a perfect cheese to bring to a celebration of family or friends who’s taste in cheese you may not know.

This Glarner Alpkäse AOP was made in Summer 2021 and aged for over a year. In September, when the mists and rains deepen and the brilliant, blue gentians will soon be covered in snow, the Tschudis close up the barn and march down the mountainside for another season, enacting again the transhumant tradition. As an AOP (Appellation d’origine protégée) cheese, Glarner Alpkäse is a protected designation of origin that insures the origin and quality of traditional food products are protected. By buying this cheese you not only get to enjoy real Swiss cheese, you help keep a tradition alive!

I encourage you to watch this video that Daniel, Caroline’s husband, made of their trip to Alp Heuboden in 2016.

Pssst! Want to know more about transhumance cheeses? We’ll be teaching a class about it next year in addition to all the exciting classes and events we have planned for our shiny, new Events space! Looking for that perfect gift for someone special? Consider gifting a class!

A Cheesemonger's Guide to Holiday Shopping: Part I

Our cheese counter never sees more action than in the days approaching Thanksgiving and Christmas. There's always something invigorating about being in the cozy, bustling shop on those days—you might find a new favorite cheese, you might run into a neighborhood friend—you’ll definitely get elbowed by someone on their way to snatch the last Rush Creek Reserve. Ahh, the holidays. It’s a magical time.

We’ve put together a few simple tips and tricks to help you achieve the best possible shopping experience. The stakes always feel high this time of year, and we’re here to help.

Shop Early

Unless you're a truly chaotic spirit and just love last-minute shopping (and really, more power to you), we advise doing your holiday cheese shopping prior to the week of Christmas. We're already fully stocked with all the exciting holiday offerings--the options only stand to dwindle. Most soft cheeses have a shelf life of several weeks, if not months. A slice of hard cheese, stored properly, can last at least a couple weeks in the fridge. The pro move? Stop in on a weekday afternoon before the 17th for short wait times, optimum selection, and minimally-frazzled mongers.

Have a Game Plan

While we love to initiate new cheese devotees into the cult of dairy, it's always helpful when a customer comes in with a direction, especially during these busy periods. You don't have to know a ton about cheese to buy cheese like a pro. Some examples of great customer prompts:

• "I love that cheese Midnight Moon—do you have anything like that?" YES.

• "I'm allergic to cow's milk—can you help me find something firm and crunchy?" Sure can.

• "I'm entertaining twelve on Saturday—adventurous crowd. Pick three cheeses for me." Love it.

• "I like that cheese that you squeeze out of a can, do you have that?" Erm, maybe not this one.

The point is, as long as you know what you like, you don't need to know a lot else. That's why we mongers have jobs, after all.

Know your Options

If you're not the DIY type but still love entertaining, boy, do we have some options for you. We offer beautiful cheese and charcuterie trays on our catering menu, including the "Impromptu" board which serves just 4-6 and can be prepared with just a few hours' notice. We also have a fantastic holiday menu this year, featuring house-made delights like Foie Gras Torchon, Egg Nog Cake, and Sous Vide Prime Rib. If you'd prefer not to throw elbows in the shop, we have a host of products available for sale online. Don't see what you want? Email us, and I'm positive we can help you out. We offer curbside pickup, shipping, and local delivery for catering and gifts. We've got you!

Check back next week for a holiday gift guide (oooh, ahhh) featuring some of our favorite products!

Rogue River Blue

by Austin Coe Butler

In the autumn, cool, Pacific air pours into the Rogue River Valley. After a dry summer, rain falls like a benediction. The landscape, parched and increasingly blacked by wildfires, brims again with green, and a kind of second spring unfurls. It is at this moment that the cows at Rogue River Creamery dine on fresh, green pasturage again and Rogue River Blue is made.

Rogue River Blue is about as big a deal as there is in the contemporary world of cheese. It was awarded the prestigious title of “the best cheese in the world” after winning the 2019/2020 World Champion Cheese Contest. Rogue River Blue winning first place was remarkable for many reasons, but most notably it was the first time an American cheese had ever won this global award. Thirty, maybe even only twenty, years ago, it could be argued that Europe was producing “better” cheeses than the United States. But, speaking plainly, the US is now producing some of the best cheeses in the world, cheeses on par with European merits of excellence.

But you can’t eat a title, and they don’t make cheese taste better. I invite you to put that title aside and instead taste it for yourself, enjoy it for what it is, and learn about what makes this cheese phenomenal and inspire excitement.

Rogue River Creamery is located in Central Point, Ore., just north of Medford in the rugged Rogue River Valley. It was originally founded by Tom Vella as Vella Cheese Company. Tom ran the creamery until his death at the age of 100 and his son, Ig (Ignazio) took over. David Gremmels frequented the creamery often. He had a long history in specialty foods and had plans to open a wine bar in Ashland, Ore. He knew he wanted to serve Ig’s cheese, and when he approached Ig about the business, he realized how much he and Ig had in common, how much respect they had for artisan producers and products. A deal was struck that David and his partner, Cary Bryant, would take over the creamery with the understanding that the Vella family cheeses would continue to be produced according to tradition. They shook on it, and in 2002 David and Cary took over the creamery. That same year, the first batch of Rogue River Blue was made.

Rogue River Blue is made with that rich, autumnal cow’s milk precipitated by the first rains. This milk is special because it has equal parts butter fat and protein. Once the cheese is made, it spends its first 30 days in a cellar designed to mimic the Combalou caves where Roquefort is aged, 98% humidity at 50º Fahrenheit. It is then moved to a different cellar where it is inoculated with Penicilium roqueforti (blue mold) at three months and aged a further eight to ten months before being wrapped in Syrah leaves from neighboring Cowhorn vineyard, which have been macerated in pear eau de vie. Rogue River Blue is produced seasonally and the voracious demand for it means its availability is limited. It is released on the autumnal equinox of each year (September 22nd this year, September 23 in 2023 for those of you already planning ahead) and is usually sold out by Christmas.

Rogue River Blue’s flavor is phenomenal. Flavor conveys in an instant what words can only do at length. There is the sweetness of pears poached in port, salty, smokey, and meaty flavors like bacon or guanciale, and a gentle yet piquant blue tingle reminiscent of Roquefort. You’ll find that depending on where you eat from this cheese, near the rind, the center, or elsewhere, different flavors will wane and come to the fore. I’d encourage you to try the leaf, too, which David and his team painstakingly pick in June and July. It lends the cheese a lovely balanced vegetal and fruity flavor. The texture is rich and fudgy, and studded with many different types of fine crystals like calcium lactate, tyrosine, and brushite, all of which are flavorless but add to the textural experience.

This cheese can be savored on its own, but if you’re looking for a pairing, try it on an Effie’s oatcake with a pear gastrique, or on a rosemary cracker. For beverage pairings, enjoy Rogue River Blue alongside a glass of Villainie or Gewürtztramminer. Naturally, Syrah or an Oregon Pinot Noir is a welcomed accompaniment. This cheese can hold its own against stronger beverages like Basel Hayden’s bourbon, Dampfwerk’s pear brandy, or, a personal favorite, the French desert wine Banyuls.

We have six wheels of Rogue River Blue, and this is the only time of year this cheese is available, when the autumn rains return to the Rogue River Valley and the cows are grazing on the preternaturally green grass to make next year’s batch of Rogue River Blue. Stop into the shop this week and buy a wedge. Whether it’s to see what all the hype is about or enjoy an old favorite, you’ll leave with a great American blue cheese.

Gruyere Alpage

Désalpes et le Gruyère d’Alpage Chenau!

by Austin Coe Butler

Last weekend, one of the most singular and exciting events in the world happened in the Alps—a celebration known as Désaples in Switzerland. After a grueling summer of labor and isolation, shepherds descended with their cows from the mountains to the safety of the valleys in the time honored tradition of pastoral transhumance. Pastoral transhumance is the seasonal, rotational grazing of animals, and shepherds around the world from the Basque Country to Mongolia and even Wisconsin follow this ancient practice. But in the Alps, there is a heightened drama and revelry brought to the event. Farmers march their animals into the remote heart of Alps like Hannibal to make cheese for the summer. On their descent, they are fêted by entire towns and villages.

Dèsalpes is not just a gastronomic celebration where cheese is a gustatory pleasure, but a communal event where cheese is at the heart of culture, society, and economy. The shepherds and townspeople are dressed in Tracht, traditional clothing like Dirndl and Lederhosen, while the cows are crowned with plumes of feather grasses, antlers made of fir branches streamed with ribbons, and wreaths of bright, brilliant marigolds bearing massive, clangorous bells. The bells sound less like cowbells and more like the belfries of a town all ringing out in celebration. Cows that have produced the most milk are honored with the largest bells and most magnificent crowns. Cows are also adorned with religious iconography, consecrating milk as a primordial liquid like so many other religions and civilizations. The crowds cheer and applaud the farmers and cows like returning seafarers, and this last moment of the summer becomes a celebration of food and drink, community and tradition, which by night turns raucous with dancing and carousing. I’ve written before of the time I watched this procession in Piedmont (known in Italian as the Tranzhumanza), but I am often reminded of the German woman standing next to me who whispered in wonderment, “Unglaublich, unglaublich…. Incredible, unbelievable…”

Our current wheel of Gruyère Alpage comes from Chenau. Alpage, which refers both to the high altitude pastures and the diversity of grasses and wildflowers the animals graze on, signifies that this Gruyère was made during the summer months at a high altitude from the milk of cows who ate wild forage. Chenau overlooks the Col de Lys, and Guedères, where last year’s Gruyère Alpage was made, is just one valley over, a few miles away as the crow flies. Father and son, Pierre and Christian Boschung move to five different chalets throughout the summer, ascending to a peak elevation of 5,500 feet(!) elevation before descending at the beginning of autumn. These chalets are spartan in their amenities. High above the cloud line, they are removed from the world, like Thomas Mann’s The Magic Mountain. There is no cell service, no electricity, so a small generator is lugged up the mountain for essential tasks like milking. Pierre and Christian conduct the grueling work of making Gruyère by hand in a cauldron over wood fire like the old gruyiers of the 13th century as their aprons, smudged with soot from leaning into the cauldron to stir and cut, attest. The wheels are brought to Fromage Gruyère S.A., the only remaining affineur of Gruyere in Fribourg, where Gruyère was born..

Whereas the Guedères Alpage was marked by a fruity, alpine strawberry aroma, the Chenau Alpage has more savory, cured meat notes like sugar cured bacon with a subtle smokiness. At times it is reminiscent of Parmigiano Reggiano with its tyrosine crunch and brothy savoriness.

Come celebrate Désalpes and the fruits of the summer at the shop with us and a hearty wedge of Gruyère Alpage from Chenau this weekend!

Basque Cheese Blowout

by Austin Coe Butler

I’ve written previously about Ossau-Iraty and the Euskadi, or Basque, people’s incomparable relationship with their local breeds of sheep. Millenia ago, when the Basque arrived in Europe before any other living European ethnicity, they entwined their fate with their sheep by choosing to live the timeworn way of the shepherd, feeding, housing, and caring for their sheep while the sheep provide them with milk, meat, and wool. Instead of keeping their sheep in barns, the Basque keep their sheep in their homes. Traditional Basque homes are three stories with the sheep living on the ground floor heating the shepherds and their families on the upper stories. In Euskada, the Basque language, there is no distinction between speaking about locally made cheese and sheep’s milk cheese; they are both ardi-gasna. It’s from this culture that Ossau-Iraty, the staff favorite sheep’s milk cheese, comes. I’m thrilled to introduce two more sheep’s milk cheeses from the Basque Country that have recently arrived in our case: Tommette Brebis, from Onetik, the Basque cooperative that makes Chebris, a customer favorite, and Tomme Brûlée, from Beillevaire.

Tommette Brebis, literally “little wheel of sheep’s milk cheese,” is a mild, adorable cheese weighing in at a little over a pound. At just two months of age, it is the youngest of our Basque cheeses and has an appropriately gentle, buttery paste with the delicate brightness of lemon curd and the richness of buttered popcorn. The small “tommette” format (think P’tit Basque) is common in Basque cheese markets as sheep produce very little milk and as a result shepherds with smaller herds make these daily, practical tommettes. You’ll often see these tommettes coated in Espelette pepper or smoked.

Tomme Brûlée is another small sheep’s milk tomme with a twist. After several months of aging, the affineurs at Beillevaire step in to brûlée the rind of this cheese, giving it a striking mottled appearance like the side of a brook trout. While I suspect this brûléeing is more for visual appeal, some people swear they can taste a broiled marshmallow or burnt caramel sweetness to it. Tomme Brûlée has rich notes of coconut milk and lime zest, more of that sheep’s milk tang than the Tommette Brebis.

Our wheels of Ossau-Iraty are tasting phenomenal right now. In addition to their classic rich, roasted chestnut savoriness and sweetness, these wheels have a delightful blueberry fruitiness.

Basque sheep cheeses are united by a remarkable creaminess. There’s none of the gritty, granular, or gamey qualities you can sometimes get in sheep’s milk cheese that can turn people away. If you’re new to the world of sheep’s milk cheeses or a long-time fan, this weekend to try these three Basque cheeses, some of the best sheep’s milk cheeses in the world!

Alemar Cheese Apricity

by Austin Coe Butler

Apricity. The warmth of the sun in the winter. An evocative, if obscure, word, and a feeling we’re all familiar with here in the north. It’s often felt in moments of stillness and clarity. It’s also the name of Alemar’s newest cheese, an aptly named orb of lactic-set cow’s milk cheese with a warm, tangy flavor and glowing rind. Where does this flavor come from, and what is a lactic-set cheese?

When milk is left to its own devices in an ideal, warm environment, (or in the back of your fridge well past its best by date) the bacteria and microbes naturally present in milk begin to consume its component parts. Lactobacillales or lactic acid bacteria (LAB) consume and convert the milk sugar lactose into lactic acid. The increase of lactic acid makes milk more acidic or “sour,” causing the proteins in milk to tangle into curd. The discovery of this was a two-fold revolution, firstly, because most people (still) can’t process and digest lactose after infancy without gastrointestinal distress, and, secondly, curd forms the basis of cheese. Those curds can be drained from the whey and what was once a seasonal, indigestible, bland, and highly perishable liquid that was oftentimes a vector for diseases is transformed and preserved into a delicious, valuable, and safe food that could be enjoyed at any time.

Many of the steps we associate with cheesemaking are absent from lactic cheese making. Making lactic cheese can be as simple as warming milk, allowing the indigenous cultures and lactic bacteria to curdle the milk (or adding lemon juice or vinegar), and then gently ladling the curd to a form or cloth to spontaneously drain. Lactic curds are not cut or stirred like rennet curds. They are also not pressed. Lactic cheeses have a weaker curd as the acid drives off much of the calcium into the whey and the curd has to be handled gently. This weaker curd is why you won’t see larger cheeses that are lactic set–they are usually small crottins or logs–but this weaker curd is also the secret to their delicate, mousse-like texture. Many ripened or aged lactic cheeses have a little rennet added to them, as Apricity does, to assist in forming curd.

You’ve no doubt had lactic-set cheeses before like cottage cheese, cream cheese, and goat’s milk chêvre, all defined by their fresh, bright lactic tang. The world of lactic cheeses is also fascinating and complex, and lactic cheese can be found throughout the cheese eating world like Indian paneer, Italian ricotta, Tyrolean Graukäse, and Georgian dambalkhacho. Lactic cheeses tend to be fresh cheeses like chêvre or cottage cheese, though there are some ripened or aged lactic cheeses like Valençay, Chaoruce, and Apricity, which develop a tantalizing cream line.

Apricity has a gently yeasty tang, reminiscent of cultured yogurt, tart white grapes, or natural, unfiltered white wine. It’s a perfect accompaniment on these cooler nights as fall begin to tinge the tree tops. If you’re a fan of some of our Italian softies like Il Nocciolo, La Tur, or Robiolina, or a Fromagophile who loves fresh chêvre, or you just like to sit down with a bowl of cottage cheese, Apricity is the cheese for you.