Butternut Gets Gold

Happy to announce that our alpine style cave aged cheese, 'Butternut', so named due to its buttery and nutty tones, got Gold at the most recent World Cheese Awards in England! Honored to be among large companies from Germany, Switzerland, Africa, France, Italy, Spain and Austria, who knew a little ole' farm from Vermont that could, did!?....Pun intended...By the way, the name 'Butternut' has nothing to do with the squash. There is no squash in it or on it. Ha! We are very proud since this competition was one of their largest, over 2500 entries, 200 judges and at least 77 cheeses just in our category.

The kicker though? We are almost sold out of this cheese right now as its season has ended. So we must wait for the ones to age in the cave. Go figure.

Vaquero Blue Review on Slashfood

Click here to read a review by Slashfood on our new award-winning Vaquero Blue cheese.

Vaquero Blue at World Cheese Awards

We are excited to announce that our newly released blended sheep & cow milk blue cheese was garnered a Bronze at the World Cheese Awards in the Canary Islands, last week. With more than 2400 entries, 150 judges and 34 countries having entered, it is an honor to receive an award from this most prestigious organization awarding cheese makers for over two decades.

Vaquero Blue was loosely modeled after a Spanish cheese made by a master cheese maker I met through the folks at VIAC. I discussed my recipe with him in private, as ironically it was very similar-except that it was solely sheep milk at that time- and then tweaked it a bit and made it a blend! Who knew it could award at WCA 2009?! Still a bit under development, what a great start.

This one gets its name to pay homage to the Vaqueros, Spanish cowboys, who migrated to our ranch over 160 years ago. Spanish style cheese. Spanish name. First award in Spain. Hola Vaqueros!

Willow Hill Wins at World Cheese Awards

We are excited to announce that our new cheese, Butternut, (which husband named due to its butter-y and nutty flavor profile) just won a medal at the World Cheese Awards in Dublin, Ireland. With 2400 entries from every cheese making nation, Butternut made its long trip from Milton, Vermont to New York where it was consolidated with others en route to Dublin. There it was most likely lifted, sniffed, tasted while the judges chewed along thru the other 2399.........

Butternut is an Alpine style semifirm cow's milk cheese plank aged in our underground cave here on the farm. Quite an honor as it was included with other Alpine style cheeses in Europe where they reign in this category!