I am overjoyed to see aged goat cheese getting more attention from America’s cheesemakers. Personally, I can’t work up much enthusiasm for another fresh, rindless chèvre—we have plenty of those—but a new firm, nutty goat cheese with a natural rind, made in the U.S.A., gives us more choice in a slender category. The blue ribbon-winning beauty pictured above isn’t new—it debuted maybe 10 years ago—but it is tasting better than ever. And I am noticing a few more entries in this slim niche. Many people tell me they don’t like goat cheese, but in my experience, everybody likes this type.
I served Pennyroyal Farm’s Boont Corners (above) in a class recently, and it was my favorite cheese of the night. This small farmstead creamery in Boonville, in California’s Anderson Valley, manages about 100 goats and 25 sheep. When the sheep are giving milk—February through August—Boont Corners is a mixed-milk cheese. The wheel I served in class was roughly 15 percent sheep’s milk but it can be as high as 30 percent in wheels made in early spring.
Goat whisperer: Erika McKenzie-Chapter
Cheesemaker Erika McKenzie-Chapter releases Boont Corners at a range of ages. I’m loving it at about four months, when it’s firm but not dry. Boont Corners Vintage, aged five to seven months, is sharper, tangier and a bit saltier from the moisture loss. Aged from seven months up to a year, it’s Boont Corners Reserve, a hard cheese with a butterscotch-like sweetness and brothy flavor (the cheesemaker’s description), suitable for both nibbling and grating.
I do not nibble Boont Corners; I eat it avidly in thick slices. It is a raw milk cheese with an aroma of damp cave, roasted nuts, artichoke and lemon and a texture that starts off sturdy and finishes creamy. The flavor is concentrated, balanced between sweetness and salt, with a lingering lemony aftertaste. McKenzie-Chapter describes the flavor as buttery and slightly vegetal and says some batches have a hint of caramel.
“I find myself constantly wondering if (the cheeses) are good enough, and what makes the best cheeses the best, and how can I do better as a cheesemaker,” McKenzie-Chapter wrote me in an e-mail. In that sentence, she just described what distinguishes a decent cheesemaker from a great one. Boont Corners won a blue ribbon at the American Cheese Society judging this year, and I predict more ribbons ahead.
Pennyroyal Farm is one of the few California farmstead cheese operations that welcomes visitors, and it is absolutely worth the 2-1/2 hour drive from San Francisco. Sarah Cahn Bennett, the proprietor of Pennyroyal Farm, is the daughter of the founders of Navarro Vineyards, probably the Anderson Valley’s most successful winery. Her parents’ business is less than 10 miles up the road from Pennyroyal, where Bennett has also planted vines and is making wine. Savoring a wedge of Boont Corners where it’s made, along with a glass of Pennyroyal Farm Chardonnay, strikes me as a civilized way to pass an hour.
Goat Lady Dairy’s Providence
Alas, distibution is limited for Boont Corners. You can find it at Oliver’s Markets (multiple locations in the Santa Rosa area) and Big John’s Market in Healdsburg. Or you can purchase it online from the creamery. Other superb domestic cheeses in a similar style include Goat Lady Dairy’s Providence, Andante Dairy’s Tomme Dolce and Firefly Farms’ Cabra La Mancha — all of them nutty, mellow cheeses that make a lot of people say, “I can’t believe this is goat cheese.”