By Peg Todloski, Weaver Street Market Specialy Merchandiser
Through our Special Delivery program, we bring in small-batch, artisan cheeses a couple of times a month. We bring in a limited amount of these amazing cheeses and sell them at a crazy-good price. When they’re gone, they’re gone, but not to worry, there’ll be something else on the way. Be sure to stop by our cheese counters to find out what Special Delivery we’ve received lately.
This week’s Special Delivery cheese is the awesome Mad River Blue, a certified organic raw cow’s milk blue cheese from Von Trapp Farmstead in the Green Mountains of Vermont, a third generation family farm (and yes, related to those Von Trapps).
Werner and Erika von Trapp purchased the farm in Waitsville, Vermont in 1959, and it has been a working dairy farm ever since. Over the course of three generations, the von Trapp family has transitioned the farm to a certified organic dairy. Sebastian Von Trapp has been making organic cheeses at the farm since 2009. The von Trapp family mission for their farm is to be one example of how to make a small family farm in the center of Vermont economically viable by producing delicious, organic, small-batch cheeses.
Mad River Blue is named after the Mad River Valley of Vermont. Wheels of the cheese are pierced when young to allow the growth of Penicillium roqueforti, then aged for about three months, developing a natural rind and gorgeous blue veining.
Mad River Blue cheese is made from organic, raw milk. As it ages, it develops flavors of sweet cream, hay, and grass, a light buttery sweetness and a mild peppery-blue bite. It’s great with sweet wines, dark beers, or dried fruits.