We’ve all heard of a wine trail, but what about a cheese trail? The Vermont Cheese Council has created the Vermont Cheese Trail, in an effort to promote and publicize 34 farmstead and artisanian cheese makers. Visitors to the state can tour and sample cheese, much like they would in Napa Valley or other vineyards.
Called the Taylor Farm after its original owners, Jon Wright and his wife, Kate, have found a niche. They make their own handcrafted Gouda, a cheese so sophisticated in flavor that it isn’t even comparable to the washed-out grocery-store variety. The Wrights have won American Cheese Society awards for their farmstead and maple-smoked Goudas, both made with fresh raw milk, not the pasteurized stuff that is the main ingredient in the store-bought product.
“When you look at cheese-making and farming, it’s broken up geographically,” says Ellen Ecker Ogden, coordinator of the council and author of “The Vermont Cheese Book,” which sketches the landscape of the state’s artisanal industry.
Visiting the farms and their operations also illustrates that cheese – the kind to be savored with bread and wine, or simply by itself – is more than a cellophane-wrapped wedge on the grocer’s shelf. Each cheese is a unique blend of milk and cultures that individual cheese-makers craft and let age into a delicacy.
“Tasting cheese on the farm is quite a different experience than tasting it in a store, a restaurant or standing at your kitchen counter,” Ogden writes on her book’s website. “The smell of the animals in the barn, the view of the verdant fields, and sight of farmers moving fences for crop rotation or tenderly ushering their animals into milking stalls – these are the special ingredients that make Vermont cheese so exceptional.”
Other visitor-friendly places in southern Vermont include the Crowley and Grafton cheese companies. Crowley is the state’s oldest cheese factory. The Grafton Village Cheese Co. was founded in 1890, but fire destroyed the original factory. The Windham Foundation, which is responsible for restoring much of the Village of Grafton, resurrected the company in the 1960s, and today Grafton makes award-winning cheddar sold in its cheese shop in the charming village.