By GRETCHEN METZ
Special to CC (Chester County Cuisine and Nightlife)
Local cheesemakers are taking a page from the Brandywine Valley winemakers’ book to partner up and promote their products.
Pennsylvania has 70 wineries that are connected along 11 “wine trails,” including the Brandywine Valley. Each welcomes visitors to tour their vineyards and taste their wines and then travel down the road and do it all over again at another location.
With wine trails so successful, Yellow Springs Farm owners Al and Catherine Renzi got to thinking, “Hey, let’s try that, too.”
Working with the Chester County Economic Development Council, the Renzis — who milk Nubian goats to make two dozen specialty cheeses — came up with the idea of the Chester County Cheese Artisans.
The newly formed group consists of eight cheesemakers in the county who make farmstead and artisan cheeses.
“Some have been in business 10 years, eight years, or less than five years,” Al Renzi said. “We’ll pull together as a regional group.”
Renzi envisions a “cheese trail” much like the Brandywine Valley Wine Trail, and he would like to partner with the winemakers for mutual marketing.
That sounds good to Lee Miller, who owns Chaddsford Winery with her husband, Eric.
“I’d love to work with them for an event,” Miller said, adding that Chester County has “great local wine and cheese.”
Chaddsford already partners with local bed and breakfasts and other complementary industries for joint promotions, Miller said.
Blain Mahoney, executive director of the Chester County Conference & Visitors Bureau, thinks the idea of a cheese trail is “wonderful” and would like to help market the concept.
Mahoney said pairing the county winemakers and cheesemakers for events is good business, adding that Virginia already does that quite successfully.
Debbie Milukal, who owns and operates Amazing Acres with her husband, Fred Bloom, joined the artisans’ group because she wanted to get to know the other cheesemakers, as well as combine resources.
“There is power in numbers,” said Milukal, who makes cheese from the milk of her Nubian goats at her Warwick farm. While Milukal acknowledges there are only eight members now, “You have to start somewhere,” she said.
The Vermont Cheese Artisans Trail is very strong. Coming up is the Vermont Cheese Festival, said Milukal, who hopes the Chester County Cheese Artisans efforts will follow in a similar direction.
Hope Rotelle, a member of the Rotelle family that owns September Farm in Honey Brook, said a cheese trail is a good marketing idea for the region.
“People would come to this area for the cheese,” said Rotelle, who makes cheese from cow’s milk. “There are a lot of us, so the area would be known for that.”
Cheese made in this region has its own flavor, Yellow Springs’ Catherine Renzi said. “Our goats’ milk has a higher butterfat” than goats that graze in other areas, Al Renzi explained.
Yellow Springs currently sells its cheese through a Community Supported Agriculture, or CSA, program in which the farmer offers a certain number of “shares” to the public.
With a CSA, interested consumers purchase a share before the start of the growing season. In return, the shareholder receives a box of seasonal produce — or in this case, cheese — each week throughout the farming season. Yellow Springs has 100 shareholders.
Renzi likes the CSA marketing concept because it connects the community with agriculture. When shareholders come to the eight-acre Yellow Springs Farm to pick up the cheese, they visit with the goats and see the process of cheese making up close.
“Cheese making is an opportunity and a privilege,” he said. It is an opportunity to showcase “a product that comes from a farm that has creativity and uniqueness and offer it to people at a local level.”
For more information about the individual farms, visit www.chestercountycheese.org.
