Featured Cheese - February 2020

White Wensleydale is firm but not dry and hard, creamy yet the surface is slightly uneven and crumbly, and has a slightly sweet but also tart flavor. It’s sometimes described as having a nutty, buttermilk flavor and with a honey aftertaste, and gentle aroma of cut grass. It has a fine curd, minimal texturing, and high moisture content. Wensleydale is usually eaten young, at about a month old. This cheese goes well with a crisp apple and is traditionally eaten with fruitcake.

You are about to enjoy a cheese that was savored, and even written about, by the Romans over 2000 years ago. Its rich heritage was born in central France in the Auvergne mountains at an altitude of over 3000 feet. Auvergne has exceptionally lush pasturelands due to the volcanic soil, mountain storms, and summer sun - all of which give this celebrated cheese its rich and vigorous taste. Two thousand years ago, the curds were put into a wooden cylinder called “le Formage,” which is now the French word for cheese.

Cantal bears the AOC designation and can be found in 3 sizes – the largest wheel weighing about 95 lbs. It has a thick smooth, grayish/brown rind, and some say it smells like its fertile pasturelands. The interior is close textured and pale yellow with a sweet milky aroma, a nutty, buttery flavor, and a slightly acidic finish if it’s aged. Typically this cheese is matured from 3-9 months, and you will find it is quick to show fleur de bleu – a blue mold which the Europeans gladly eat.

Port Salut is a semi-soft natural cheese that is most recognized by its orange rind. It is rather mild with a savory, sweet flavor, unlike many other French cheeses. It is a cheese that has universal appeal with its smooth, velvety texture and light acidic taste. The pâte is elastic, cream-colored, soft, and supple with a very faint aroma. Bon appetit!

Délice de Bourgogne is the name of a trademarked cheese from the Burgundy region of France, created in 1975 by Jean Lincet and his fifth-generation, family-operated cheesemaking company, Fromagerie Lincet, originally founded in 1895 and based in the towns of Saligny, Vaudes, and Brochon, the latter of which shares a home with the winemaking village of Gevrey-Chambertin along the Route des Grands Crus in the Côte de Nuits. The milk for the Lincet family of cheeses is gathered daily from 61 farmers with whom Fromagerie Lancet has worked for over 50 years.

The award-winning Schallenberg is a very special offering made in the Emmentaler AOP of Shallenberg, Switzerland, by master cheesemaker, Hansruedi Gasser, at a picturesque mountain dairy and shop named Oberei where he resides with his wife, Brigitte, and their two children. Oberei is a certified mountain cheese dairy, and Hansruedi, an Emmentaler AOP Käsere top ten producer in 2013, 2015, 2016, and 2017. Handcrafting only four wheels of cheese per day in the centuries’ old, traditional method, Hansruedi produces cheese of the finest quality and consistency.

Valdéon, is a pasteurized, semi-firm blue cheese made from both cow and goat’s milk from the base of the Picos de Europa in the town of Posada de Valdeón, Castilla y Léon, Spain, by a family-owned and operated cheesemaker. While considered a sister cheese to the Cabrales DOP (Denominación de Origen), the Valdéon is milder, with a luxurious, creamy texture. Traditionally wrapped in oak or maple leaves and aged six months, this cheese captures the attention of your palate with its rustic and robust flavor combination.