The SpecialThis week we are pleased to feature Vermont artisan cheeses from the Cellars at Jasper Hill of Greensboro, Vermont as well as vegetables from Joe's Brook Farm of Barnet. All this week, Chef Casey Graham will use products from the Cellars at Jasper Hill and Joe's Brook Farm in main dishes, appetizers, soups, and salads. Be sure to ask your server about tonight’s Farm to Table Special!
The Farm
The Cellars at Jasper Hill is a 22,000 square foot, seven vault system of cheese aging caves located in Greensboro, Vermont. The Cellars were constructed for the purpose of providing affinage, or aging expertise, as well as distribution opportunities for local cheesemakers so that they may access the burgeoning market for artisan cheese nationwide. Artisan cheeses from the Cellars at Jasper Hill can be found locally and nationally in farm stands, natural and gourmet food stores, and fine restaurants.
The Cellars at Jasper HillEnter the Cellars at Jasper Hill, a new 22,000 square foot complex of cheese aging caves on Jasper Hill Farm in Greensboro, Vermont. The Cellars are a partnership of several northeastern cheese producers who are using the infrastructure of the caves, Jasper Hill's existing national distribution system, the technical expertise of world-renowned artisan cheese makers and Vermont’s landscape of dairy farms to create a vibrant and profitable artisan cheese industry. In an article he wrote for the Diner Journal, a Brooklyn-based culinary magazine, Jasper Hill Farm owner Mateo Kehler writes, “We are building a local economy that is an expression of the landscape."
After getting enjoyably lost for a bit in Greensboro’s labyrinth of dirt roads and fall foliage-splashed pastures, I find myself only slightly late for my interview at the Cellars. My host is Zoe Brickley, the Cellars’ primary account manager and event planner. Zoe is a graduate of the French Culinary Institute of NYC and has a B.A. in philosophy. These dual focuses fit neatly into her work at the Cellars, where the prevailing philosophy is that a commitment to a place and its people can bring about the successful reinvention of its agricultural economy.
The Cellars at Jasper Hill is the brainchild of brothers Andrew and Mateo Kehler, along with a community of like-minded farmers and cheese makers looking to join forces to promote their products. The Kehlers, longtime summer residents of Caspian Lake in Greensboro, own Jasper Hill Farm where the Cellars are located and have been producing artisan cheese there since 1998, building their first cheese house in 2002. The Kehlers were sending their award-winning Bayley Hazen Blue, Constant Bliss, and Winnemere cheeses to New York City in a refrigerated truck when they realized they could share their distribution resources with other local cheese makers. The idea for the Cellars was born, and a few years later a $3.2 million state of the art cheese aging facility was built with grants and loans from the state as well as funding from private investors.
The Cellars is a “medium-sized business” that currently ages cheese for nine producers: Jasper Hill Farm, Landaff Creamery, Von Trappp Farmstead, Scholten Family Farm, Crawford Family Farm, Twig Farm, Cobb Hill, Cabot Creamery and Ploughgate Creamery, all located in Vermont except for Landaff, which is just over the border in New Hampshire. The producers vary in size from Ploughgate, a single-person cheese making operation in Albany, Vermont, to Cabot, which as a branch of Agramark is part of a $400 million a year business. The Cellars also provides technical support and educational opportunities to aspiring artisan cheese makers. At the Vermont Food Venture Center in Hardwick, currently under construction, employees of the Cellars will offer training in artisan cheese making and in the use of the Center’s cheese making facilities.
While the Cellars is dedicated to promoting local farms and cheese makers, they do not restrict their market to just Vermont or even just New England, where they sell about half of their products. The Cellars see themselves as a natural part of the east coast “foodshed” that extends as far south as Washington DC, and the market for their products is truly transnational: they distribute to New York, Chicago, California, and the Pacific Northwest. The Cellars at Jasper Hill will age and sell over 100,000 pounds of cheese this year, employ 22 people full time, and generate $5 million in sales. They have expectations of 50-100% growth in the next few years.
Artisan cheese is what is known as a value-added product, one in which raw ingredients are manipulated to create something more valuable, and its production is an exacting scientific process that requires time, skill, and proper facilities. Zoe and I don hairnets, rubber clogs, and lab coats to enter the caves, a necessary precaution to prevent foreign microbes from entering. The air inside is ripe with odors of ammonia and mold. Zoe leads me through the Cellar’s seven vaults, three large and four small. Each has a specific humidity and is used to age different kinds of cheese (bloomy rind, washed rind, etc). The vaults are built into the bedrock, where ambient temperatures are constantly near 52 degrees.
A variety of processes are used to keep out random bacteria and control the salt, moisture, and pH of each batch of cheese. These elements determine which kinds of mold, yeast, bacteria and mites will be able to grow and give each type and individual batch of cheese its unique flavor, which is also influenced by the milk that is used. It is all quite complicated and fascinating, especially for those who enjoy the science behind it. Zoe and I meet a couple of scientists walking through the vaults. For one, it is his first day on the job, and he looks like a kid in a candy store. “Are you excited?” Zoe asks. “Yeah, I feel like I’m on safari!” He smiles. “It’s a microbial jungle in here!”
A driving force and major source of capital behind the creation of the Cellars was Cabot Creamery, the nationally-renowned Vermont cheddar cheese maker. Cabot wanted to produce an artisan cheese with milk from a single source, but as a large, well-known producer they were having difficulty breaking into the artisan cheese market. They decided to co-brand with Jasper Hill Farm, who already had a national reputation for their artisan cheeses, and Cabot Clothbound Cheddar now takes up the majority of real estate in the cheese caves. In 2006, the first year it was produced, Cabot Clothbound Cheddar won “Best in Show” at the American Cheese Society Conference, and it was recently named one of the Best-Tasting Products in the first-ever Taste Test Awards hosted by Cooking Light in New York City.
The most recent issue of Brooklyn's Diner Journal is dedicated entirely to articles about the farms involved with the Cellars at Jasper Hill. The magazine is emblematic of the surge in popularity of gourmet, local foods, and one of its primary goals is to support the creation of healthy food economies by promoting medium-sized agricultural companies like the Cellars at Jasper Hill. Writer Annaliese Griffin informs Brooklynites, “By supporting a robust medium-sized economy, we give farmers options that are better than growing cheap subsidized calories or selling their land to condo developers. And best of all, we can do it from Brooklyn, knowing that our dollars will support and inspire more and more medium momentum.” They can do it also knowing they will have a delightful dining experience. Cheeses from the Cellars at Jasper Hill cheeses are rich and delicious. Paired with local artisan and domestic beers or a glass of dessert wine like Eden Ice Cider, a slice of cheese from the Cellars at Jasper Hill is a treat that can be enjoyed on many levels.
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