The August 2022 Cheese Club shipment features Ventana, an all-goat version of Cabrillo.
We actually got the idea for Ventana from our friend, Janet Fletcher, publisher of the Planet Cheese blog. A while back, Michelle and Jack Rudolph, Creamery owners, donated a virtual cheese tasting hosted by Janet to help fundraise for the California Artisan Cheese Guild.
During the tasting, Janet mentioned in conversation how Cabrillo, one of our year-round and most popular cheeses, would be super interesting and there's nothing like it in the states if it was made with 100% goats milk.
When Janet tells you something like this, you listen! Shortly after the virtual tasting, we informed our dedicated artisans in the creamery of Janet's insight and they worked their magic to make this cheese happen for a future Cheese Club limited-release offering - Meet Ventana!
As outlined by Janet, Ventana is a 100% goats milk version of Cabrillo made with farmstead goats milk and aged for five months. Similarly to Cabrillo, Ventana is a Spanish-style hard cheese with a robust, zesty taste and a somewhat crumbly texture that's rich, full and slightly salty at the finish. The goats milk also gives Ventana an herbaceous and "goaty" flavor and aroma which is slightly muted in Cabrillo with the addition of cows milk.
Ventana is different from Rocky Butte, our other goat's milk hard cheese, because of the harder exterior, additions of tyrosine crystals from the aging process and less of a creamy paste interior.
Ventana is only available in the August 2022 Cheese Club shipment. Sign up online and become a member today to try this exclusive cheese offering! Our Cheese Club members receive four shipments every year in August, November, February and May. Each shipment includes a selection of year-round and seasonal cheeses as well as an exclusive or limited-release cheese.
About Janet Fletcher:
Janet is an experienced and award-winning food writer based in Napa, California. She develops and tests recipes for cookbooks and magazine features and evaluates cheese for her online and in-person classes.
Cheese Three Ways: Cabrillo, Cabrillo Reserve & Ventana
Cabrillo is our Spanish style cheese created from a blend of goat and cow milk named for the iconic Highway One that runs along the rugged California coastline minutes from our farmstead. It has a rich, nutty character, golden color and pairs great with white wine, Pinot, almonds and figs. Cabrillo is a cheese we make predominantly in the fall as our goats’ production wanes and their milk takes on a stronger character. It's available year-round online and at select farmer's markets in California.
For Cabrillo Reserve, we took our classic Spanish-style Cabrillo and aged it for one year. That's it. Simple, delicious and effective. It's actually one of our first handmade batches from 2021 that's been aging in our caves, and is three times older than our year-round Cabrillo cheese offering.
Through the aging process, the blend of goat and cow milk in Cabrillo concentrates into bigger, bolder flavors with even more tyrosine crystals forming. Also, as more lactose breaks down with aging, it sharpens the cheese with a higher lactic acid content.
Add Cabrillo and Cabrillo Reserve to the August 2022 Cheese Club shipment to try all three cheeses side-by-side. Use code CABRILLO10 for 10% off your order.