Vermont Farmstead Cheese Makers

Lovely things are a-brewin’ (fermenting?) in my old neighborhood of Central Vermont (Champlain Valley). Our living conditions have changed since moving back to Chicago, going from residing in an 1849 one-room schoolhouse to a high-rise urban residence. Come to think of it, Trix & I are really nothing more than an inverse Oliver & Lisa Douglas from “Green Acres”.
Over the last five years, a number of farmstead (an operation that makes its cheese from milk produced on their own farm) cheese makers have began to litter this magnificent pastoral world.
I recently went back to visit some close friends (sweet 125-acre pad) and hit two small farmstead family operations: Dancing Cow Farm and Twig Farm. Both boutique operations have received high praise from the highly knowledgable Anne Saxelby of Saxelby Cheesemongers in the Essex Street Market in Manhattan, Serious Eats, The Atlantic (Corby Kummer), as well winning awards from the American Cheese Society and others over the last few years.

On my first day there, I procured several local cheeses from Twig (West Cornwall), Dancing Cow (Bridport), Jasper Hill (Greensboro), and Blue Ledge (Salisbury) Farms at the Middlebury Co-Op, the Middlebury Farmer’s Market, and the Lincoln Peak Winery (Saturday wine & cheese tasting.). Lincoln Peak Winery is producing some lovely whites, using grape varietals created by the University of Minnesota (active grape breeding program) which are made to thrive in colder climates such as this. These wines have floral characteristics reminiscent of wines found in the Alsace region of France.




The shining star for me was Dancing Cow’s Bourree, a raw cow’s milk wash-rind cheese. This magnificently nutty fromage has barnyard characteristics that not only don’t offend but bring you to that place of ultimate pastoral pleasantness. Although the cheese is super-duper right-out-of-the fridge, it really shines when you let it come to room temperature.



Bourree is a raw milk washed-rind cheese made from Dancing Cow owner Steve and Karen Getz’s herd of eighteen cows. Cheese is made from the milk that is extracted on that day. Steve told me that, after performing several milk interval tastings, they strongly believe that fresh milk rapidly deteriorates. In their minds, making cheese from absolutely fresh raw milk is mandatory if your goal is to create a first-rate product. After milking their cows, the still-warm milk is immediately used to start their cheesemaking process.




If you were to come back as a cow, this is the place you’d wanna be hangin’ out. Outside of the milking portion of their day, these cows are never penned and feed on nothing but grass and hay. The Getz’s told me they came up with the name Dancing Cow because that’s literally what their cows often do when grazing in the pasture.
Unlike most dairy cows that produce sub-par milk year-round through poor diet and overproduction, these naturally raised cows produce only after calving occurs (next spring). The entire herd is pregnant now and will give birth in early spring. At that point, the Getz’s cheesemaking regiment will start again. A much-needed winter break soon awaits the Getz’s and other farmstead cheese farmers.





Karen Getz creates aeration holes by hand so air can enter their wheels of blue cheese.



The other standout I tried was a cow/goat cheese from Twig Farm called Drum. This limited production cheese can best be described as a softer version of Parmigiano-Reggiano, containing those pleasant granular salt crystals as well.


Twig raises only goats but procures all of its cow’s milk from nearby grass-based dairy farms.

Both Dancing Cow and Twig rely on Jasper Hill Farm (Greensboro) in the Northeast Kingdom of Vermont for their affinage (the art of aging and caring for a newborn cheese and seeing it through to full maturity).


If you plan to go to Vermont, basing your days around visiting these farmstead operations is a sensational way to enjoy this amazingly beautiful part of the country. The cheese makers I visited (Twig and Dancing Cow Farms) couldn’t have been happier to share their slice of heaven with other cheese enthusiasts.

Locally, Fox & Obel, Binny’s, and Marion Street Cheese Market all periodically carry some of the Jasper Hill cheeses (they often carry Cabot’s clothbound cheddar, a cheese that Jasper Hill is the affineur). Pastoral sometimes carries Twig and Dancing Cow cheeses.






Dancing Cow Farmstead Cheese
237 Holstein Drive
Bridport, VT 05734
(802) 758-3267
kgetz@gmavt.net

Twig Farm
2575 South Bingham Street
West Cornwall, VT 05778
(802) 462-3363
twigfarm@shoreham.net

Blue Ledge Farm
2001 Old Jerusalem Road
Salisbury, Vermont 05769
(802) 247-0095
sales@blueledgefarm.com


Jasper Hill Farm
PO Box 272
148 Town Hwy 41
Greensboro, Vermont 05841
(802) 533-2566

Pigmon -- Great post and pics... I look forward to trying those and other cheeses from the area... maybe sometime I can get up that way too and visit...

A

PIGMON wrote:

If you were to come back as a cow, this is the place you’d wanna be hangin’ out.

My thoughts, almost to the word, when I saw this picture. Lovely post, Pigmon. I'm headed up to Maine at the end of January ... I'll definitely keep an eye out for these cheeses.

PIGMON wrote:The entire herd is pregnant now and will give birth in early spring.

OK, so these cows live on a healthy ruminant diet, in an idyllic Vermont landscape, and do meaningful work, making world-class cheese for an appreciative, if over-educated audience. But, I ask you, is their treatment truly humane? Who attends the Lamaze classes and goes out in the middle of the night to get them pickles and chocolate ice cream?

Great post, PIGMON. You always push us to refine our understanding of the truly special, wherever it can be found. Thank you.

Thanks for the kind words.