Vermont Gold

The town of Grafton, Vermont has been called one of the ten most picturesque spots in America. During the autumn foliage season, the views along the historic Main Street are burnished gold. Grafton is a quintessential New England village, the type that only seems to exist in a Currier & Ives print. There is a pointed white church steeple, a country store, a history museum and the Old Tavern Inn, which was built in 1801 and where charming wicker rockers are artfully placed along a rambling front porch.

Another kind of gold can be found in the nearby pastures – “Grafton Gold,” the three-year-old, extra-aged cheddar of the Grafton Village Cheese Company.

Grafton, Vermont is dedicated to tradition, and a simpler way of life, and cheese making is part of that tradition. The Grafton Cheese Cooperative was established in 1892 so that local dairy farmers could turn surplus milk into cheese. The cooperative was destroyed by fire in 1912, but re-opened by the not-for-profit Windham Foundation in 1964. There is much to learn here about the techniques employed to create world-class cheddar.

We enter the immaculate white clapboard structure, just outside the village, where cheese making has been underway since dawn. While parts of the process have been updated, Grafton Village Cheese still uses methods that originated in the 1800s. Long rectangular stainless steel vats are filled with pale, spongy slabs of bonded curds. Two men in crisp white uniforms will turn the slabs by hand. This process is called “cheddaring.” One man moves down along the vat and feeds each slab into a milling machine that shreds it into dozens of squiggly fingers that tumble into the vat. Another man tosses fists full of salt onto the shreds and a large automatic mixer crawls through the curds, turning the mixture over numerous times. Eventually, the other man takes the curds by the handful and packs them into 60-pound size metal boxes, pressing the mixture in carefully and closing the lid. The boxes will be placed under pressure for 14 to 16 hours to squeeze out as much moisture as possible.

In the tasting room and retail shop, Wendy Brewer, the marketing director, willingly answers my barrage of questions while I indulge in a progressive sampling of classic cheddar aged one, two, three and four years. The longer the cheese ages, the sharper it becomes and I tremble with pleasure as a chunk of four-year-old cheddar explodes in my mouth. It is vividly tangy, buttery and nutty all at once.

Wendy explains that the cheese making technique for cheddar is designed to squeeze out as much moisture as possible. This will deliver the dense, crumbly cheddar texture. Grafton maintains high standards for the milk used, which is locally sourced from Jersey cows on 38 farms.

“We’re doing our part for family farms,” says Wendy. She explains that Jersey cows produce premium milk with high protein and high butterfat, ideal for “Grafton Gold” and the company’s wide selection of award-winning cheddars. Demand for Grafton cheddar continues to increase nationwide and the company plans to open a second production facility in Brattleboro, Vermont. Clearly, I am the ideal customer for Grafton. I like modern and I like classic, so I purchase 1-year, 2-year, 3-year and 4-year cheddar. 2003 was a very good year, after all. I also pick up a recipe for Grafton Cheddar Cheese Soup, one of their collection of signature cheese dishes.

Later, in the emerald pastures behind Grafton Village Cheese Company, we strike up a friendship with a couple of “Grafton Girls” – a pair of fetching, honey-brown Jersey cows ready and willing to do their part for “Grafton Gold.”

©2007 T.W. Barritt All Rights Reserved

Oh My Gouda!

If you travel west on Route 11 -- just past the town center of Londonderry, Vermont -- a battered green farm truck is tucked into the pasture that creeps up to the southern side of the road. Atop the truck cabin roof is a sign, hand painted in red block letters with an arrow that reads “Vermont Cheeses.”

We turn right and climb the dirt road to Taylor Farm. At the top of a small hill is a rustic, fire-engine red cheese house and shop. On the hill beyond, we can see the shiny apparatus of a working dairy. A woman with a kind smile, wearing layers of flannel, strolls down the hill to greet us and takes us into the shop.

The woman is Mimi Wright, sister to Taylor Farm’s cheese master, Jon Wright. Taylor Farms produces award-winning Gouda cheese from raw cows’ milk, totaling 70,000 pounds annually.

“Why, Gouda cheese?” I ask Mimi as she invites us to sample cubes of traditional Gouda and maple smoked Gouda.

She tells us, “That’s what worked,” and that few dairies in Vermont were producing Gouda cheese, so therein was the opportunity. And, as Taylor Farm keeps a herd of 55 Holstein and Jersey cows, it made good sense, since the Holstein breed originated in the Netherlands where Gouda was perfected.

Using toothpicks, we pierce several cubes from the tall mound of traditional Gouda. It is a sunny golden color and tastes rich, tangy and creamy. The maple smoked Gouda is buttery, smoky and sweet and was awarded 1st Place by the American Cheese Society.

There is a window that separates the cheese house from the retail shop. Mimi points out the brine bath and I can see stacks of traditional Gouda sealed in bright red wax and wedges of maple smoked Gouda sealed in chocolate-brown wax, aging to perfection.

Vermont farmers have produced cheese since the 1800s. Taylor Farm is a member of the Vermont Cheese Council. Three-dozen cheese makers produce more than 100 varieties of small-batch artisinal cheeses. Jon Wright has produced his award-winning Gouda for eight years. Mimi prepares all the baked goods for the shop and we purchase a crusty loaf of her oat bread made with curds and whey from the dairy and sweetened with honey. Mimi also sells brilliant earth-colored yarns made from the wool of sheep on the farm, poetically labeled “Yarns from the Hills.”

We have purchased as much cheese and bread as we can carry when cheese master Jon Wright enters the shop. He is dressed in a well-worn navy blue sweatshirt, jeans and work boots, and there are splashes of mud on his cuffs. He has rugged features, a lined face and a warm smile. I ask him how he got into cheese making.

“I tell people we started out of desperation,” he laughs. “Dairy farmers gone awry.”

While most of the money made from farms in the state of Vermont has typically come from dairy products, that percentage has been decreasing as the price of land becomes more expensive. Farmers sometimes have to take second jobs to make ends meet.

“We were looking for ways to add value to our milk,” Jon explains. They were able to expand the operation for a small capital investment. The dividends have been clear. There are magazine articles mounted on the walls, praising the quality of the cheese from Taylor Farm.

Jon Wright is one of a new generation of food artisans, and the joy he takes from his work is evident. He is physically and emotionally connected to the land, and the agricultural products he produces.

“The cows are my life,” he says. “I love them.”

©2007 T.W. Barritt All Rights Reserved