Idyll

Idyll

Big Old Mountain Cheese

We Wait Patiently for This Gentle Giant.

Skimming a Bit of Cream Lends Idyll a Distinctive Toothsome Texture and a Savory Nuttiness as Big as the Wheel.

Fabulous for Fondue.

Aged Over 2 Years. Raw Cow Milk

the reverie that led from chapman’s pasture to idyll

Chapman’s Pasture is the old name for where we live and where the owner of the village’s General Store grazed his cows over 70 years ago and Chapman’s Pasture would be the name for Pete’s grana: a really big hard cheese that would age out to 2 years and beyond.

He’d done research, asked questions, formulated a recipe, and made the first batches in August and September of 2013. Pete brought milk from the farm the day before and allowing the cream to rise. Early the next morning he skimmed some of the cream from the top of the milk before heating it up and adding the autochthonous starter culture. Calf rennet was added and soon he was cutting the soft curd into very small pieces. A long period of stirring and heating the curds and whey followed to firm the curds. The cheese would age for over a year, so he formed the cooked curd into great big wheels, with weights on top to press them smooth. Two days later the wheels were in the brine, and ten days after that they were aging on wooden boards.

We waited a full year, 365 whole days, before taking the trier to it. Pulling a plug from the side of a wheel, we saw small, shiny gas bubbles—it was definitely not a grana! Rachel sobbed a bit, but what to do? The flavor was mild, but good—a touch fruity and sweet, reminiscent of Swiss. Wondering what a year might bring we opted to wait it out. We were well rewarded. The flavor had turned toward savory, nutty, and very bold, while the texture remained creamy. We knew we had a winner! (Turns out we weren’t the only ones…)

With a sensory profile of an Alpine hard cheese, these 40 pound drums would round out our mountain cheese offerings. Thinking of Reverie, and the idyllic pastureland from which our cheeses spring, Rachel declared it Idyll. And while it is definitely Pete’s make, this cheese is dear to Rachel as well, and not just because it is delicious, but because she cultures and churns the skimmed cream to make ridiculously delicious butter.

Idyll is our biggest wheel of cheese and one of our smallest productions — just 4 makes each season, for around 500 pounds each year. We sell most of it in our shop and at farmer’s markets, but if you’re lucky you might find one of the rare wheels to leave southeast Vermont.

Idyll earned a Super Gold at the World Cheese Awards in Norway this year. How about that? We were delighted, but the best part is seeing that raw milk cheese made without much in the way of modern conceits are appreciated for their beautiful, unique selves. But that is another post.