Featured Cheese - January 2024

Visually, this cheese is a deep golden-orange color, a warm amber hue. The paste is firm and crumbly with loads of crunchy protein crystals, or as we like to call them, delicious bursts of concentrated flavor. Yet once the Artikaas is in your mouth, it becomes luscious and creamy, a melt-in-your-mouth treat. The Artikaas shows decadent, rich flavors of butterscotch, browned butter, caramel, roasted nuts, and whiskey.

Beecher’s Flagship is a semi-hard cheese made from pasteurized cow’s milk. Due to the long aging process of approximately 15 months, the cheese develops a uniquely robust, nutty flavor. Beecher’s Flagship is extremely versatile and will work great crumbled into an omelet or frittata, melted into macaroni and cheese, sliced for sandwiches or burgers, or simply sliced on your cheese board. It is also a perfect pairing with dry wines like Pouilly Fuisse or Syrah, as well as your favorite IPA or Hefeweizen.

Valserena Parmigiano Reggiano is a firm, cow’s milk, parmesan cheese, aged 24-36 months. Its texture is firm and crumbly, with visible flavor crystals. On the palate, this cheese explodes with flavors, including an interesting juxtaposition of rich butter and bright citrus. The finish is longingly inviting, so much so that you will wish you had more. Oftentimes this cheese is served in pieces drizzled with a touch of honey or balsamic vinegar from Modena.

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.

The thin and springy rind surrounds a buttery-yellow colored paste with small ‘eyes,’ or holes, in its otherwise creamy texture. The rusticity and grassiness of the milk shines through in its nutty and salty flavor profile. Because Cuneo is located in the Piedmont region of Italy, one of Italy’s most celebrated wine regions, Raschera pairs with Piedmont whites, such as Arneis, Cortese (Gavi), and Moscato (d’Asti), as well as the region’s reds.