After navigating The Kingdom’s back roads I pulled up to the farm, tucked away in the hills of Greensboro, to be greeted by Melissa who is one of the farm’s cheese-makers.
“Welcome to Jasper Hill...How did you hear about the party tonight?”
I showed her my invitation, and was waved on to the parking area that was bursting with autos, promising a good turnout for what was to be a groundbreaking event in the world of Vermont’s (and this country’s) artesian cheese-making. We followed the tiki torch lined path up over the hill and came to the entrance of the new cellar facility where quickly we found our way to the cheese table and bar underneath the tent.
Brothers Mateao and Andy Kehler head up the farm which is home to forty dairy cows and nationally acclaimed cheeses such as Bayley Hazen Blue and Constant Bliss. It is also now home to the site of a new state-of-the-art 22,000 square foot cheese aging facility named The Cellars at Jasper Hill.
The Cellars were built right into the hillside and house seven subterranean vaults which when full, will be able to hold up to two million pounds of cheese a year for aging.
The vaults are all part of a very big dream to help take Vermont’s artesian cheese industry to the next level. And it is a beautiful thing when dreams really do come true.
We procured a few beers and some cheese, a selection of offerings from all the VT cheese-makers who have their craft stored in The Cellars, including Dancing Cow Farm, Crawford Family Farm, Cabot creamery, Grafton Village, Lazy Lady, and Twig Farm. Sitting down to enjoy the fresh flavors we listened to Andy and Mateao speak, along with our very own Jim Douglas.
After the ribbon cutting we were off to tour The Cellers. A awe inspiring monolith to deliciousness that required us to put on OR style booties and hair-nets to enter. But we could bring our beers in. Sweet.
Once inside I was amazed at the immensity of the building. Since most of it is underground, you really don’t get picture of how grand the whole thing is until you are staring at a open vault door of a 32’x60’x20’ room, with spruce planks as high as the eye can see... eagerly awaiting their payload of cheese. This was the center and main vault, which is still being constructed, the only one with out cheese on it’s shelves.
The vaults are arranged in a sort of half wagon wheel pattern, the center “hub” being offices and control rooms, and labs. I continued on to the next room where there was 200 wheels of Grafton Village cloth bound cheddar, shelves of Dancing Cow Bouree’ (One of my favorite VT cheeses...try it if you have not) a selection of “Oh My Heart” from Lazy Lady, of course plenty of Bayley Hazen Blue, and these two giant wheels of cheese on a table, both 3 feet in diameter. I learned over breakfast the next morning that these are the only two examples of a true Emmentaler in the country.
I finished wandering through the rest of the vaults, seeing what was the most cheese I have ever witnessed in my life, and headed out to the tent just in time for dinner.
The Parker Pie Company from West Glover was doing the catering, and what a tremendous job they did! They served up roasted maple glazed pork (the pig was from the farm) a mix of roasted sweet corn and summer squashes, creamy crushed red potatoes with Dancing cow Bouree’ in them (I think I went back for thirds of these..) Bayley Hazen popovers and some summer beans. For dessert the little cheesecake squares made with Constant Bliss were so good, I made sure to procure my own private stash to last me the rest of the night.
After dinner The Dave Keller band got everyone even more fired up, the bonfire was lit, and we enjoyed playing “The High Bell” as Andy called it. You know, that fair time favorite where you take a giant mallet and wail away at the lever, sending a metal cylinder flying up the board in hopes of ringing the bell at the very top. This kept us amused for hours. It is even more fun when there is not a carnie there heckling you.
After a long night of good food and drink, conversation, and dancing I retired to my tent which was set up behind the Kehler’s farmhouse.
I awoke the next morning, stuck my head out of the tent, and was greeted by Mateao calling from the house “There is coffee up here! Come on up!” There were only a few stragglers left at this point, including my tent neighbors from Murray’s Cheese in Manhattan, and we made our way up together to the farmhouse.
We enjoyed coffee and a tall glass of raw milk that was from that mornings milking. Mateao and his wife Angie started making pancakes and cooking up their own bacon. Mateao held out a mason jar of syrup in front of me and told me to stick my finger in it...it was deep and complex, nutty and slightly smokey and I was told it was made from the sap of the Rock Maple rather then the Sugar Maple. I am addicted...
When The Cellars are up and running fully, they will be able to provide aging and marketing for up to 40 farms in and around Vermont. This will be a amazing resource for small dairy farms who have extra milk, and want to be able to have a alternate source of income to move this milk by making cheese. Japer Hill will be able to give them the resources and know-how to be able to do this. We talked about the variety of exsiting Vermont cheese-makers, some who focus on few varieties while others make many types of cheese. Mateao explained his philosophy that there are two types of cheese makers; some that are “bowlers” (as he haphazardly made the motion of throwing a bowling ball down the lane), and others that are “curlers”( he became focused and acted out moving one of those rocks with the handle on it down the ice). He pointed out neither is a bad thing, its all about the passion, but he hopes that his farm can pin point the science behind the craft for those bowlers and make their cheese come out consistently as if they were curlers.
We finished up breakfast, and said our good-byes, and as I walked down the dirt road to my car, I took in the magic of the farm. I looked around me and realized I had just had one of the most transcendent food and agriculture experiences of my life. It is amazing to see the outcome of a lifetime dream and hard work and even more impressive to be with people who open up their success to others in hopes of making more dreams come true.
The Jasper Hill story touches home here in the Valley, as American Flatbread has become the largest buyer of Bayley Hazen Blue in this whole country; (between the Waitsfield, Middlebury and Burlington restaurants) a milestone I am happy to have helped achieve while I worked there.
So next time you are at Flatbread ask for their blue cheese on your salad. Next time you are at Mehurons, pick up one of Jasper Hill’s cheeses, and know that you are not only contributing to the Kehler family, but making decision to support many of Vermont’s fine dairy farmers and artisans.
Posts
