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Préféré de nos Montagnes
Valserena Parmigiano Reggiano
Alisios
Rare Cheese Club Selections - 2020
Please note that occasionally we are able to secure a truly special, hard to find cheese on short notice and may substitute an item.
Featured Cheeses - January 2020
- Country: France
- Cheese Texture / Type: Soft; Bloomy Rind
- Milk Type: Cow
- Cheese Age: 1-2 months
Préféré de nos Montagnes is a modern version of a classic French brie cheese named Reblochon, which is not available in the United States because it is made with raw milk and prohibited from being imported. Both Préféré de nos Montagnes and Reblochon are produced in the Jura Mountains of the Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes region of France, in Haute-Savoie. Thus, Préféré de nos Montagnes is essentially a Reblochon-like brie made with pasteurized cow’s milk in lieu of raw. Thankfully, this allows us to share this wonderful style of cheese with you.
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- Country: Italy
- Cheese Texture / Type: Firm
- Milk Type: Cow
- Cheese Age: 2-3 years
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.
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- Country: Spain
- Cheese Texture / Type: Firm; Mixed Milk
- Milk Type: Cow, Goat
- Cheese Age: 2-3 months
Alisios is the name of the trade winds that blow over the island of Fuerteventura in the Canary Islands off the Southern Coast of Morocco, where this lovely cheese selection is made. Its exotic location and ethereal name only add to the excitement and attractiveness of this semi-firm cheese aged two to three months, a magical mix of both pasteurized cow’s and Papoya goat’s milk covered with sweet pimentón – the source of Spanish smoked paprika.
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Featured Cheeses - February 2020
- Country: Spain
- Cheese Texture / Type: Semi-firm; Blue; Mixed Milk
- Milk Type: Goat, Cow
- Cheese Age: 6 months
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.
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- Country: Switzerland
- Cheese Texture / Type: Hard
- Milk Type: Cow
- Cheese Age: 10 months
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.
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- Country: France
- Cheese Texture / Type: Soft; Bloomy Rind
- Milk Type: Cow
- Cheese Age: 1-2 months
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.
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Featured Cheeses - March 2020
- Country: Netherlands
- Cheese Texture / Type: Firm
- Milk Type: Sheep
- Cheese Age: 12 months
Ewephoria is a Dutch gouda-style cheese made from pasteurized sheep’s milk instead of cow’s milk, as well as vegetable rennet cultures, and then aged 12 months. CheeseLand, a Seattle-based importer of Dutch cheeses, worked with a small farm to create Ewephoria in 2004. The sheep graze on salty, green, island pastures near a nature preserve in the northern Friesland region of The Netherlands bordering the sea, where they are treated like members of the family.
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- Country: Switzerland
- Cheese Texture / Type: Firm
- Milk Type: Cow
- Cheese Age: 4-6 months
Kaltbach Le Crémeux is a fairly new cheese, arriving in the United States in early 2017. It is a washed-rind cheese made at the Emmi facility in Emmen, then cave aged in Kaltbach Cave, a veritable labyrinth of 22 million-year-old natural sandstone located near Lucerne in the Alpine Valley of Switzerland. It is named after the river that runs through the cave, which keeps the humidity at 96%, a crucial component in the development of the cheese’s texture.
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- Country: Spain
- Cheese Texture / Type: Semi-firm
- Milk Type: Sheep
- Cheese Age: 2-3 months
This Spanish selection, first imported to the United States in 2004, has a unique story and inspiration: the Guirra breed of sheep. Valencian cheesemaker, Enrique, created this cheese to preserve this breed, which had become nearly extinct by 1990. With his cheesemaking, he has grown the herd to 500 sheep. The cheese’s preparation and presentation are distinctive: it is wrapped in cheesecloth, then the curds are drained by tying together the ends of the cloth, which causes the cheese to resemble a servilleta (napkin) when unwrapped.
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Featured Cheeses - April 2020
- Country: United States
- Cheese Texture / Type: Semi-soft; Blue
- Milk Type: Cow
- Cheese Age: 3-4 months
Red, White & Blue is a semi-soft blue cheese made from raw cow’s milk and aged three to four months prior to release. Blue cheese styles include dolce (sweet) or piquant, and this blue falls into the latter camp, a refreshing surprise and a deliciously spicy delight. It is both luxuriously creamy and clean on the palate. As soon as the paste touches one’s tongue, it almost seems to evaporate, yet the layers of flavor linger longingly after.
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- Country: United States
- Cheese Texture / Type: Semi-soft
- Milk Type: Cow
- Cheese Age: 2-3 months
Sweet Grass Dairy produces six core cheeses and we are fortunate to offer the Thomasville Tomme as one of this month’s selections. Their version of a French Pyrenées Mountains farmhouse Tomme is a semi-soft, grass-based, raw cows' milk cheese that is aged for 60 to 90 days. Reflective of its southern Georgia terroir, this cheese shows subtle earthy and grassy notes, as well as a creamy texture on the palate.
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- Country: United States
- Cheese Texture / Type: Semi-soft; Fresh
- Milk Type: Cow
- Cheese Age: 2 weeks
Tulip Tree's Nettle, a 2016 American Cheese Society Winner, is a delicate, crumbly, and bovre-style fresh cheese similar in style to a chèvre but made with pasteurized cows' milk using microbial rennet that is vegetarian-friendly. The cheese is covered in fresh mint, sage, and nettle leaves, which makes for a savory, yet clean, bright, and lactic flavor profile. It is an ideal cheese to bring along on a picnic because it is so versatile.
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Featured Cheeses - May 2020
- Country: Germany
- Cheese Texture / Type: Semi-soft
- Milk Type: Cow
- Cheese Age: 6 months
Sennerkäse is a traditional, semi-soft, German, Alpine cheese made from raw, organic cow’s milk and aged for six months, but made with the intriguing addition of yellow Eastern Indian fenugreek seeds. The inclusion of fenugreek is a cultural homage that celebrates the blue fenugreek that appears in decorations throughout the state of Bavaria in southeastern Germany. On the nose and palate, this creamy, buttery cheese shows herbal and grassy notes, toasted grain flavors, and slight salinity, all of which are surprisingly complemented by the nuttiness and maple-syrup sweetness of chewy fenugreek seeds.
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- Country: Italy
- Cheese Texture / Type: Semi-firm
- Milk Type: Cow
- Cheese Age: 60 days
Raschera is a natural-rind, semi-firm, pressed-curd cow's milk cheese whose namesake is Lake Raschera, located in the Italian province of Cuneo. Only a very small quantity of this cheese is exported from Italy, so we are very fortunate to have acquired this cheese for our club this month by way of the Cooperativa Agricola Frabosa Soprana, a township in Cuneo where this cheese is made. The cooked curds for this cheese are pressed into square wooden molds, which produces a square-shaped cheese that made it easier for the cheeses to be transported on the backs of mules.
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- Country: United States
- Cheese Texture / Type: Soft; Bloomy Rind
- Milk Type: Cow
- Cheese Age: 4-14 weeks
Because Redhead Creamery is a farmstead, the milk could not be any fresher, as the team has complete control over the cows' feed, the cows themselves, the milk they produce, and the resulting cheese. Little Lucy, a bloomy rind, brie-style cheese made from pasteurized cows' milk and aged for 4 to 14 weeks is named for founder Alise Sjostrom's young daughter, and offers a rich, buttery flavor profile, a clean mouthfeel, and a delicate sweetness.
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Featured Cheeses - June 2020
- Country: Spain
- Cheese Texture / Type: Semi-firm
- Milk Type: Goat
- Cheese Age: 2 months
Members of the Aguilar family, the affineurs of the award-winning Montealva, have been making cheese for over 50 years with milk from a herd of Payoya goats, a rare breed native only to the Sierra de Cádiz mountains, and hearty enough to thrive in this challenging environment. The goats graze in limestone-rich mountain pastures, whose terroir reveals itself in the bright, grassy, and herbal notes of this dreamy, semi-firm, pasteurized cheese.
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- Country: United States
- Cheese Texture / Type: Firm
- Milk Type: Cow
- Cheese Age: 6-9 months
Grafton's flagship Clothbound Cheddar is a sharp, firm and flaky, yet creamy cheese made in the centuries-old British and pre-industrialized United States traditions, which means it is wrapped in cheesecloth, then cave-aged for six to nine months, yielding more robust and layered flavors than modern, plastic-aged cheeses. On the nose, it shows notes of butter, citrus, and an aroma resembling the cave in which it was aged. Its biscuit-crumbly and buttery mouthfeel is replete with savory umami flavors, nuttiness, and a hint of sweetness.
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- Country: Switzerland
- Cheese Texture / Type: Firm
- Milk Type: Cow
- Cheese Age: 3 years
Sbrinz is considered by many to be the oldest cheese in Europe, and the recipe has been preserved for centuries. The addition of the word "Alpage" signifies a Sbrinz made at a very high altitude in the Alps where cows are transported to graze on the summer's flowery, grassy pastures, and only the summer's milk is used to make cheese designated as Alpage. While Sbrinz is typically aged 18 months prior to release, the version we've selected is not released until it reaches 36 months of aging, resulting in a complex, full-flavored, and extra-hard cheese.
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Featured Cheeses - July 2020
- Country: Switzerland
- Cheese Texture / Type: Firm
- Milk Type: Cow
- Cheese Age: 6 months
Swiss cheesemaker, Reto Güntensperger, is a third-generation cheesemaker from the Saint Gallen Canton in Switzerland. The home in which he grew up was adjacent to the family’s historic Bodmen Dairy. In fact, his bedroom was only a few steps away from the cheesemaking room where the first two generations of cheesemakers, his grandfather and father, handcrafted Appenzeller cheese in a 1,500-liter vat. In 1999, Güntensperger’s father and two brothers purchased and rebuilt an empty, unused dairy in the village of Bütschwil, to expand and modernize their cheese production and ready the company for future family generations. Twenty years later, Kaserei Bütschwil maintains a balance of cheesemaking tradition and efficacy.
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- Country: Italy
- Cheese Texture / Type: Firm
- Milk Type: Cow
- Cheese Age: 4-6 months
Ubriaco del Piave is a semi-firm, Italian-style, latteria cheese from farmers in the Piave region of Veneto, Italy. It is made from pasteurized cow’s milk – from two milkings. The most striking initial aspect of this cheese is, of course, the deep and vibrant violet color of the rind and its remnants of grape leaves and seeds. Cheesemaker Sergio Moro bathes the Ubriaco del Piave for 40 hours in a proprietary mix of red wines and grape must, including the Veneto’s traditional Refosco wine, as well as other seasonal varieties like Cabernet Sauvignon, Merlot, and Clinton, then ages the cheese for four to six months.
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- Country: Italy
- Cheese Texture / Type: Firm
- Milk Type: Cow
- Cheese Age: 16 months
Sapore Mitica® is another Italian cheese from the same area as Ubriaco del Piave – the Piave River in Treviso, Veneto – and by the same cheesemaker, Sergio Moro, one of the finest makers of Sottocenere. Sapore del Piave as it is sometimes called – which means Flavor of Piave in Italian – originated in the 1960s, produced by a partnership of third-generation cheesemakers and a cooperative of dairy farms in the area of Oderzo, Italy. Made from pasteurized cow’s milk and aged for 16 months, Sapore Mitica is similar to a young Parmigiano Reggiano: buttery, with loads of fruitiness, nuttiness, and a delicious crunchiness from tyrosine crystallization.
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Featured Cheeses - August 2020
- Country: England
- Cheese Texture / Type: Firm
- Milk Type: Cow
- Cheese Age: 14-24 months
Situated on the edge of the beautiful rolling hills of Lincolnshire Wolds, about ten miles from the United Kingdom’s coastline bordering the North Sea, lies family farm Ulceby Grange, home of Lincolnshire Poacher. The property has been in the family since 1917 and became a dairy farm in 1970 under third-generation family member, Richard Jones. Richard's son, Simon, began making cheese on the farm in 1992. The raw milk for Lincolnshire Poacher is sourced from the farm’s herd of Holstein Fresian cows. After 14-24 months of maturation, the resulting cheese is a rustic hybrid of sorts, exhibiting qualities of both an English Farmhouse Cheddar and a Swiss Alpine Comté.
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- Country: Italy
- Cheese Texture / Type: Firm
- Milk Type: Cow
- Cheese Age: 18-20 months
Grana Padano, DOP cheese was originally made by the Cistercian Monks of Chiaravalle in the twelfth century – in the region between the Po, Ticino and Adda Rivers – as a means of not wasting fresh milk. By 1477, Grana Padano had evolved into one of Italy’s most sought-after cheeses. Until the early twentieth century, it was made in a variety of shapes, sizes, and methods. However, in the 1930s, advances in cheesemaking technology standardized production. Grana Padano is aged a minimum of 9 months, though the version we select for our club members is aged 18-20 months. The source of our Grana Padano selection is Farm 539, which is located on the border of two provinces, Parma and Piacenza, in the municipality of Villanova sull’Arda within the region of Emilia-Romagna.
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- Country: Austria
- Cheese Texture / Type: Semi-firm
- Milk Type: Cow
- Cheese Age: 6 months
Kilokaesle is a semi-firm cheese made from raw cow’s milk and aged for six months. A wheel comes in the shape of a truckle, a small cylinder. Kilokaesle is a mutschli-style cheese. Small wheels of mutschli were traditionally made when there were not enough curds to fill the large molds, or if there was not space in the cellar for the larger wheels. Sometimes the batches were so small that they could be made on the stovetop in a cheesemaker's home. While the Kilokaesle wheel may appear small, this cheese is big, chewy, and meaty in texture. Its flavors are bright and tart, like freshly cut apples, and the finish long lasting and tangy.
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Featured Cheeses - September 2020
- Country: Netherlands
- Cheese Texture / Type: Firm
- Milk Type: Goat
- Cheese Age: 6-9 months
If you like goat cheeses… and you like gouda, this may become your new favorite all-time cheese! No doubt the first thing you'll notice about this cheese is its striking bone-white rind and paste, a hallmark of a goat cheese. The flavor is intense, complex, and super savory: sweet buttery notes, big tanginess, sweet grass and hay earthy notes, and hints of nuts. In short, a huge, sweet, umami bomb. Its mouthfeel is luxurious, silky and creamy. You could say it’s got it all: good looks, a big assertive, outstanding flavor profile, and super creamy texture.
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- Country: United States
- Cheese Texture / Type: Soft; Bloomy Rind
- Milk Type: Cow
- Cheese Age: 7-9 weeks
Another 'Northeast Kingdom gem' from the Jasper Hill Creamery, Little Hosmer is a relatively newer cheese from Jasper Hill. L’il Hos may be small, but he’s already racked up a super gold in 2017 at the World Cheese Awards. This is a small format brie (4 ounces), aged 7-9 weeks, with a white bloomy rind. Look for light flavors of mushroom, cabbage, toasted nuts, and fresh cream. The paste is very soft, pliable, and spreadable, and the mouthfeel is super creamy and clean. We found it a milder brie that will appeal to many cheese lovers and novices alike.
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- Country: France
- Cheese Texture / Type: Hard
- Milk Type: Cow
- Cheese Age: 12-18 months
Traditionally made near the city of Lille, France, Mimolette was originally made at the request of King Louis XIV to replace Dutch Edam cheese which he himself banned in Flanders. So the French reproduced Edam, but with a few twists of their own to make it distinct, seasoning it with annatto which gives Mimolette its nutty, sweet flavor and unique orange hue. Mimolette is a very hard cheese, but the fudgy paste becomes smooth and creamy when eaten. Its intensely nutty flavor also offers slight fruity/pineapple notes with just the right amount of saltiness to balance the butterscotch sweet notes.
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Featured Cheeses - October 2020
- Country: United States
- Cheese Texture / Type: Semi-firm
- Milk Type: Cow
- Cheese Age: 4-6 months
Landaff is refreshingly different from a cheddar or a gouda. Though fairly firm, the paste is open and crumbly and melts like butter on your tongue. The flavor is milky and tart like a fresh yogurt and develops a mottled gray, natural rind that smells earthy from being aged in the cave-like cellars. The paste is a lovely, creamy yellow and as it matures it forms a slightly darker, richer yellow band just under the rind.
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- Country: Switzerland
- Cheese Texture / Type: Firm
- Milk Type: Cow
- Cheese Age: 12 months
L’Etivaz, named after a small Swiss mountain village, is said to be made as Gruyere cheese was once made over a century ago. An AOP designated cheese, L'Etivaz is made from milk from a small cooperative of 76 cheesemakers that felt that government regulations were enabling cheesemakers to produce Gruere in a way that compromised its original flavor profile and integrity. In the 1930s they created L’Etivaz and eventually sought and obtained AOP designation.
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- Country: Netherlands
- Cheese Texture / Type: Firm
- Milk Type: Cow
- Cheese Age: 18-24 months
Procured and aged at the renowned Fromagerie L'Amuse in Santpoort-Noord, Holland, just outside of Amsterdam, each batch of L’Amuse Gouda is selected for us by L'Amuse owner Betty Koster. It’s aged for over a year, allowing big crunchy flavor crystals to develop. Over the years, owners Betty and Martin Koster have built up the L’Amuse brand to be one of the more respected gouda producers in the country through their affinage, or cheese maturation process. They’re known for aging goudas at higher temperatures, resulting in greater complexity and dept in flavor their cheeses flavor profiles.
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Featured Cheeses - November 2020
- Country: Switzerland
- Cheese Texture / Type: Firm
- Milk Type: Cow
- Cheese Age: 10 months
Where the Roth Grand Cru Surchoix also featured this month has loads of flavor up front, Chällerhocker builds flavor as you eat it. It begins more subtly, and the flavor unfolds on your palate to reveal a wealth of deep flavors. This is a cooked curd cheese, so you'll taste that rich custard flavor, but you'll also pick up on a roasted nuttiness and a slight sweetness. The sweetness is due in part from the wine that's rubbed on the rind. It's not an overwhelming sweetness but rather a subtle sweet note that adds to Chällerhocker’s complex flavor profile. Extra cream added back in adds to the rich, creamy, fudgy texture and mouthfeel.
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- Country: United States
- Cheese Texture / Type: Soft; Bloomy Rind
- Milk Type: Cow
- Cheese Age: 2-4 weeks
Manchester is named after the town where Zingerman's Creamery was originally located and is crafted from milk sourced entirely from one small local farm (Calder Dairy). It’s a double cream, so pretty rich right out of the gate. This soft, bloomy rind cheese is aged 2-4 weeks and presents a soft, velvety mouth feel. The flavor varies slightly with the season as it largely reflects what the cows have been eating. The rind is completely edible and delicious too. We found its flavor profile earthy, creamy, woody, slightly tangy and nutty, with a lingering, mouthwatering finish.
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- Country: United States
- Cheese Texture / Type: Firm; Washed Rind
- Milk Type: Cow
- Cheese Age: 9+ months
Winner of the 2016 World Cheese Championship Contest, Emmi Roth’s Roth Grand Cru Surchoix was the first Wisconsin-produced cheese to do so in nearly 30 years. In 1865 Oswald Roth started exporting Swiss cheeses into the US. Fast forward to 1990 and Roth Kasen USA is founded in Monroe, Wisconsin, becoming the first to install copper vats for producing Alpine cheeses and the first to begin using red pine wooden planks to age cheeses in the US.
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Featured Cheeses - December 2020
- Country: United States
- Cheese Texture / Type: Semi-soft
- Milk Type: Cow
- Cheese Age: 11-14 months
Home to a wide array of livestock including more than 42 registered Jersey Holstein milking cows that produce over 600,000 pounds of milk each year, Spring Brook Farm is a 1,000 acre dairy farm that produces award-winning farmhouse cheeses. In fact, their Tarentaise cheese featured this month has won no less than 22 national and international awards to date, including the most recent honors of taking first place in the "Farmstead Category Aged 60 days or more" at the 2018 American Cheese Society show, and an extra-aged version taking Best of Show at the same event in 2017.
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- Country: United States
- Cheese Texture / Type: Soft; Bloomy Rind
- Milk Type: Goat
- Cheese Age: 2 weeks
This soft goat cheese won 1st in its class at the American Cheese Society awards in both 2015 and 2017. It’s a bloomy rind cheese with a wrinkly rind and white paste. The cream line, just under the rind, will age from the outside in and become creamier and creamier as it ages. The paste is soft and melts on your tongue. It's buttery in flavor and as clean as goat cheese comes.
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- Country: Spain
- Cheese Texture / Type: Firm; Mixed Milk
- Milk Type: Cow, Sheep, Goat
- Cheese Age: 6 months
This Spanish firm mixed milk cheese is aged 6 months and uses a minimum of high quality 60% cow’s milk, 20% sheep’s milk, and 6% goat’s milk collected from local farms. While the cheese is being aged, the rind is repeatedly brushed and rubbed with olive oil, leading to herbal, vegetal and peppery aromas and flavors. The paste is light yellow with small eyes. The finish is particularly interesting, reminding us of savory bay leaves. Los Cameros Red Label pairs well with dry red wines and is traditionally paired with a fruit Dulce de Membrillo, a popular Spanish paste made from quince.
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Experience International Variety
You might receive a Gaperon, originating in France during the 14th Century, an
authentic Lancashire by Ruth Kirkham, and an Italian Taleggio matured in the
caves of Valsassina…all in one shipment!
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