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Vermont Shepherd
February 18, 2007
Ever since we started dreaming of having a cheese shop, Vermont Shepherd topped the list of cheeses we wanted to carry. So we were sad last year when there was none available at the time we were opening Foster & Dobbs. It is a highly seasonal cheese – made only when the sheep are able to spend their days grazing in the pasture – and all of last year’s wheel had been sold out. Happily, we were able to begin receiving this wonderful cheese in the fall.
Vermont Shepherd is an aged, raw milk sheep cheese. This cheese has a golden brown rind and rustic shape, every wheel is distinctive. The texture is smooth and creamy, the flavor is sweet, rich and earthy with hints of clover, mint and thyme. This is the oldest and most well known of the American sheep’s milk cheeses, and is only available August through April.
David & Cindy Major make the cheese with friends and family on their 250 acre farm in Westminster West, Vermont. They began making cheese in 1993, though the first few years the cheese was pretty awful and mostly ended up on the manure pile. They finally decided that if they were going to make cheese, they needed to learn how to do it right, so Cindy wrote to several French cheesemakers asking for guidance. The Majors then packed up the family and traveled to France where they visited and learn techniques from these small, family-run creameries. They were most excited by a cheese they learned to make in the Pyrenees and brought that recipe home to Vermont. The first few wheels they made were gnarly looking and had very smelly rinds, and the Major’s weren’t confident that they’d really figured out how to make cheese. But finally, Cindy worked up the courage one day to cut one of the odd looking wheels open, and when she did all their concerns melted away: the cheese under that lumpy, smelly rind was delicious. The first time they entered this new cheese in the American Cheese Society’s annual competition in 2000, the cheese won the award for Best Farmhouse Cheese, as well as Best in Show.
Today the family makes Vermont Shepherd in small, 10 to 30 wheel batches, 3 days a week during the grazing season. Each wheel comes with a little card on which Cindy has noted the weather conditions, what the sheep were doing and nibbling on, and any particular influences the day the cheese is made. The cheese is aged on wooden boards, an age-old method that helps in the development of natural cheese rinds. Each day it is turned, brushed or washed to cultivate beautiful, natural cheese rinds. These rinds, free of plastic and wax, help to enhance the cheeses' flavor and give Vermont Shepherd its unique characteristics.
Some Ways to Enjoy Vermont Shepherd:
• As an appetizer, serve with crusty bread.
• As a dessert, pair with a cherry preserve (a French Pyrenees classic) or glazed/roasted figs.
• Almost any wine goes well with this cheese. Some in particular are: Pinot Noir, Sauvignon Blanc, Riesling, Chardonnay, Burgundy.
