The Laura Chenel Chevre Facility in Sonoma.
Bottling is done, the grapes are slowly ripening in the vineyard, so it was a perfect opportunity to take a field trip to Sonoma.
This is Todd, I like to stand next to him because he is so tall. When we arrived we were asked to put on smocks before entering the brand new pristine facility.
And then they asked us to wear booties, and then hairnets and then for a lucky few, beard-nets. This was a special trip because their facility is very concerned about hygiene and does not usually allow visitors.
The problem with not allowing visitors is that it also means not allowing pictures. They are very private about their set up and equipment and it was very difficult for me to steal a few pictures. Their facility looks a lot like a winery, large stainless steel tanks, pumps, hoses and pipes all over the place, except that instead of wine, everything is full of milk.
There were a hundred very cool things I wanted to take pictures of, but could not. However, at the end of the tour they handed out some books and I took pictures of the pictures in the book to help illustrate how awesome cheese making is.
Firstly, these are goats. They make awesome cheese. I learned that they produce milk all year long, but not very much in the winter. This is different from our grapes that are only produced once a year in the fall. This makes goats more awesome than grapes.
Farmers collect the milk and deliver it to the Sonoma facility every other day (but only twice a week in the winter). The milk arrives in a large truck (like when we receive bulk juice or wine) and is pumped into a stainless steel holding tank inside the facility.
The very same day that it arrives at the facility the milk is pasteurized and put into another tank where a bacterial culture and rennet are added. It then sits over night. The following day it is time to drain and gather the cheese. This shows the milk being poured into white bags that squeeze the liquid (whey) from the curds.
Depending on how much moisture they want to retain, they can vary how much pressure is applied to the bags. You can barely see the yellowish whey collecting at the bottom. This can take between 4 to 6 hours.
At this point I snuck a picture of our guide reaching in to let us taste the cheese. He hopped up and scooped out a fist full of warm 24 hour old goat cheese and let us taste it.
The cheese tastes different at this point, largely due to the higher moisture content and warm temperature but still wonderfully delicious.
This is taken from the book. Here they are separating the curds and whey by hand with draining fabric instead of the large automated bags.
And once the curds are separated, all that is left is to mold the cheese into a specific shape and package it. Here they are adding spices to the little logs before they package them. That's it. It takes two days from raw milk in a truck to a log of cheese at a store. TWO DAYS! So fresh! Compared to the three years from grape to wine bottle for us.
After the tour we had the opportunity to taste their finished products. This is a Chabis, "a traditional 'pillow' shape; plain, herb, dill or black pepper".
And then we had more cheese. They call this the Blossom, "a fresh goat cheese surrounding a heart of sweet and savory flavor"
But my favorite was the Melodie, "a soft aged goat cheese covered with ash"
This was in the book, and so beautiful I wanted to include it. Food photography is it's own art.
Some people I know would like to be winemakers, but all the winemakers I know would like to be cheese mongers. Because seriously cheese is awesome. And being an monger is way better than being a maker.
And on a semi related note, this is a 16 inch wheel of goat cheese decorated with flower petals that I had at a wedding recently. It took a full 35 minutes before anyone would dig into it because we all thought it was so lovely.
If anyone is getting married soon, please have giant cheese wheels at your wedding. And please, please just have cake. Wedding pie is not cool.
-L
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