This Week's Tasting: February 6th, 2017

Every week at Dairymaids we select six cheeses to include in our free cheese tasting. Whenever we are open, we are tasting cheese. We stock over 150 cheeses, so if these 6 don’t please you, we will find you the cheeses that do.

This week's cheese are:

The folks at Sweet Grass Dairy believe great cheese comes from fresh grass and happy cows. On their sustainable farm in Thomasville, Georgia they pasture feed their Jersey cows to get the milk which makes Green Hill, an incomparably smooth brie-style cheese. The rind is thin and the paste is creamy and rich. Arguably America's best Camembert.

Chocolate Chevre is a fresh goat cheese, from Westfield Farm in Massachusetts. The goat cheese is blended with chocolate to make a creamy, decadent paste - the perfect Valentine's Day treat!

Barely Buzzed is a cheddar rubbed with a mix of ground coffee beans and French lavender. Sounds bizarre, we know, but it works! The coffee and lavender rub brings out rich nutty, caramel-like flavors in the cheese. The edible rind makes Barely Buzzed a standout on the cheese plate.

Anne Jones of Latte Da Dairy is making excellent aged goat cheeses from the milk of her small goat herd. Her Caerphilly is adapted from a traditional Welsh recipe. Firm and flinty, Latte Da Caerphilly is slightly sweet with delicate goat's milk flavor.

Estive is a special version of Ossau-Iraty made only when the sheep are grazing at high altitudes in the Bearnaise mountains from June to August. Estive production is very small, comprising only 2% of overall Ossau-Iraty production. The mountain forage includes summer grasses like the Gentian (used to make Angostura bitters) and Sweet Vernal grasses (a vanilla-scented wild grass), flowers and stems and roots of licorice, thyme and blue thistle. This unusual feed combined with rich, late-cylce sheep's milk makes for a uniquely delicious cheese. 

"From the domain of the Caveman," also known as the caves at Rogue Creamery, comes this delicious naturally-rinded, aged blue. With a recipe used by Rogue since the 40s, Caveman Blue is deep yellow in color with blue bite balanced by a smooth, vanilla-like flavor.

 Our wine of the week is the new Sparkling White from McPherson Cellars in Lubbock, Texas. Made with Chenin Blanc grapes, it has a bright acidity with a touch of sweetness and notes of melon and tropical fruit.

Our pairing this week is a Strawberry Balsamic Preserve from Garden Dreams, right here in Houston.