All our cheese is hand crafted right here on our farm in our certified Creamery. We use fresh goat milk in all our cheese, from goats that we raise on pasture and are fed a natural diet without any hormones, antibiotics or chemicals. Our milk is vat pasteurized – the most gentle form of pasteurization in small 45 gallon batches. The aged cheese are ripened in one of our two cheese caves that are kept cool and humid to create the perfect environment for their maturation. Our cheese is sold to our community at farmers markets, small independent grocery stores or right from the farm.
When we started our first market in 2012 we had chevre, feta and Queso Fresco. Potomac Sunrise soon followed and then Napoleon’s Peak. My class with Peter Dixon (cheese guru!) up in Vermont really help with the development of our Classic Camembert. Snow Buttons were created as a smaller version of our Napoleon’s Peak. We started adding a “seasonal Chevre” variety in 2015 and the first wheel of Alpsiago was made in Spring of 2015 – first available in Spring of 2016 (since it is aged for a full year!). We started making Crescendo for the 2016 season.
We now have quite a broad cheese “line-up” and are excited for you to try the various categories of our cheese. Fresh Cheeses are not aged and must be consumed within 4 weeks. Soft ripened cheese age for 3-4 weeks. They are delightful to consume at this stage, but if a stronger, softer cheese is desired they will continue to ripen into a stronger, earthy, more pungent and often sought after cheeses. Our semi hard and hard aged cheese will spend the majority of their “life” in our aging cave – anywhere from 3 months to a year. We date the cut and packaged wedges for 4 weeks from cutting – after which they will start to develop a blush of mold – but this mold is easy to rinse off and the cheese is still fine to consume. And as long as our Greek Style Feta remains submerged in the brine – it will last months and months. My culture house rep tells me the yogurt cultures remain live and active for 6 weeks, so we date our Goatgurt for a month from the time it is tubbed, but we have consumed it long after that and it still looks and tastes great.