Oregon Cheese Festival 2007

This year's Oregon Cheese Festival, held last weekend at Rogue Creamery in Central Point, Oregon was a great success. The festival featured many of the cheesemaker-members of the Oregon Cheese Guild, Oregon winemakers and purveyors of other products made in Southern Oregon. Attendees grazed, ogled, purchased cheese and other goodies and perhaps most importantly, met the people who make great Oregon artisan cheeses.

Festival Highlights:   Two of the newest Oregon cheesemakers were in attendance this year - one was Fern's Edge Goat Dairy out of Lowell, Oregon (near Eugene). Andhi Reyna is making gorgeous goat's milk cheeses and covering them with herbs and other goodies. I especially liked her chevre covered with dried chantrelles...wonderful. Also newly minted is Pholia Farm out of Rogue River, Oregon. Gianaclis and Vern Caldwell are making aged cheeses from the milk of their Nigerian Dwarf goats (look for more on these producers in future posts).

The Cheesemaker's dinner, held Friday night at the Ashland Springs Hotel, allowed attendees to chat with Oregon cheesemakers and local winemakers as well as taste a variety of dishes made with Oregon cheeses and paired with Oregon wines. One of the most memorable morsels at the dinner were the fantastic chocolates from Lille Belle Farms in Jacksonville, Oregon. They've combined Rogue Creamery Smokey Blue Cheese with milk chocolate to produce a Blue Cheese Truffle that was really outstanding.

Fern's Edge fresh chevre coated in dried chantrelles (L), Pholia Farm Elk Mountain (R) 

Also featured at this year's festival was Maitre Fromager Max McCalman of Artisanal Premium Cheese in New York . Max flew in just before the East Coast snowstorm hit and outgoing air traffic was canceled...he was in town to advise Oregon Cheese guild members on their cheeses as well as to provide wine/cheese and beer/cheese pairing advice during the Festival. I had a chance to sit in on one of his wine/cheese tasting classes which was a great education in tasting and paring from a true master. More than once Max called upon pairing notes stored digitally on his handy Treo...now we know how he keeps track of all of this stuff.

from left:  Chef/Consultant Keith Ellis, David Gremmels of Rogue Creamery, Max McCalman

I've been saying for years now that there is an artisan cheese renaissance going on in the Pacific Northwest and this festival is one more bit of evidence toward my thesis. From what I can see people (that's you out there, gentle reader) are interested in cheese,  especially cheese made locally. The Oregon Cheese Festival provides a place where we can go to learn more about cheesemakers, conveniently all in one place. It's worth a trip to Central Point, Oregon just to visit historic Rogue Creamery, which has been making cheese in Oregon since 1935. If you didn't make it this year, add the Oregon Cheese Festival to your calendar for next March or enter it into your Blackberry or Treo, if that's the sort of thing you do. See you there next year!

* * For more information on other West Coast Cheese Festivals being held in 2007, see my prior post on the topic here.