Cheese & Dairy

Set includes:

• Comte -A classic French Cheese from the Pre-Alps, region of Franche Comte.  Made from 100% cow's milk, aged to a seductive smoothness, with distinctive overtones of roasted cashews and almonds.  Combines in your mouth beautifully with reds, whites or bubbly. 
• Sherry Gray -  a super buttery ash ripened double cream from Vermont, this rich, sumptuous round 
• Le Pico - a creamy, gently herbal soft-ripened goat’s milk cheese from France.
• Plus a box of wafer crackers.

Is this the best cheese in the world?  This extraordinary Australian delight is made from a blend of goat and sheep's milk then marinated in Extra Virgin Olive Oil with fresh thyme and peppercorns, and it's certainly in the conversation.  

Pair with your favorite fruit forward red,  

Martin Johnson, Cheesemonger

Vermont cheesemakers have better things to do with their time than imitate traditional European cheeses; instead, they innovate upon them.  Take Harbison for example, it's a classic brie, full of mushroom-ey and roasted root vegetable flavors, but it's wrapped in spruce bark, which yields a gently earthy, even smokey finish. 

Serving suggestion, let it come to room temperature and slice the top off and dive in with baguette shards, flatbreads or crudite.  If you don't finish the cheese, put the top back on and store in your fridge until next time.  Pair with your favorite Prosecco,    

Martin Johnson, Cheesemonger

Betty Koster founded Fromagerie l’Amuse in 1989 with her husband Martin. Their Amsterdam shop is a destination for cheese lovers, featuring rare, small-production Dutch gems like Wilde Weide and Terschelling. Betty’s deep, long-term connections with Dutch farmers, cheesemakers and opleggers (affineurs) has given her access to an unparalleled range of cheeses. She exports a handful to America exclusively through Essex St. Cheese.

Touted by its producer, the great Dutch affineur Betty Koster, as the vanilla milkshake of the cheese, this goat’s milk aged gouda is seductively smooth and has a slight overtone of brown butter in the finish. Lean, easygoing and sweet, the cheesemaker calls this goat’s milk gouda, “the vanilla milkshake of cheeses.” We also get notes of brown butter.  Pair it with something really minerally and dry.

 - Martin Johnson, Cheesemonger

Farm Notes:

Goat milk is not typically used for producing aged cheeses, or Goudas of any age.  But when the affineur is the preeminent Gouda maturer in the world, anything is possible.  Betty lets Brabander rest at temperatures higher than normal, which elicits savory notes  and a slight gaminess that are not commonly found in Gouda. The extra aging on the Black Betty wheels lend a crunchier, more butterscotchy flavor to the cheese, which sings with a perfect caramel crunch.

Manchego (raw sheep’s milk, Spain)

Widely hailed as the best Manchego available outside of Spain, this farmstead classic is full of subtle herbal and citrusy overtones. - Martin Johnson, Cheesemonger at 67Gourmet

Full description

There are less than ten cheesemakers left in Spain making farmstead PDO Manchego artesano with a natural rind like the one we offer at Essex St. Cheese. Farmstead means the animals live at the same farm where the cheese is made. PDO Manchego artesano is the Spanish government's seal of approval saying this is the real deal, the same great cheese that Don Quixote enjoyed hundreds of years ago. A natural rind—unwaxed, not the artificial brown like most Manchegos you see—allows the cheese to breathe; the cut cheese's aroma is clean, it smells like hay and almonds.

Bliss.  Pure, unadulterated bliss.  Yes, we're talking about a butter, but the RLM Beurre de Baratte is a butter like no other.  Smooth, creamy and sweet with big chunks to salt.  It's a cheat code to melt into pasta, atop grilled proteins or in popcorn, but seriously, all you really need is a spoon.  

Pair it with a Jura Chardonnay (yeah, really!)

Martin Johnson, Cheesemonger 

The most unique cheese that we carry and one of the most unusual cheeses in the world, this Portuguese sheep cheese is coagulated with a thistle based rennet.  What results is a cheese that starts out goopy and buttery and then in an abrupt change of direction, it finishes tart, lean and sour.  Pair with your favorite Vouvray or New World Chardonnay.

Martin Johnson, Cheesemonger

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If you ask any Portuguese person what their favourite cheese is, it is unlikely that Serra da Estrela cheese won’t be their answer.

The oldest Portuguese cheese is a DOP (Protected Designation of Origin) product made of only three ingredients: raw and whole sheep’s milk, thistle flower and sea salt. What makes it so special? Everything! It’s not just any sheep’s milk that is used to make Serra da Estrela cheese. It’s only that of the Bordaleira da Serra da Estrela or Churra Mondegueira breeds that graze freely. The manual milking process, the filtration of the milk in white muslin cloths, thistle flower ground with salt, and the whole filtration, moulding, salting, pressing, and maturation process done in several phases carefully respecting times and temperatures. The result? A cheese that presents itself with a semi-soft buttery and yellowish-white paste (Serra da Estrela cheese) or semi-hard to an extra-hard paste with a brownish-orange colour (Serra da Estrela Velho cheese) with “pleasant aroma and persistent flavour, clean, from strong to slightly strong and slightly spicy and salty.”
- The Art of Tasting Portugal

Creamy, lush and sumptuous, this triple cream (like a brie but half again richer), this cheese is from Indiana. It pairs wonderfully with almost all sparkling wines and various dry whites. - Cheesemonger Martin Johnson, 67Gourmet

Trillium is a triple cream, mold ripened cheese inspired by the French classics — Camembert and Brie. It has a soft creamy texture, with rich smooth flavors and gentle lactic tones. It ages three to eight weeks, ripening gracefully from the outside to the center.

Tulip Tree Creamery was started in 2014 and is located on the northwest side of Indianapolis. They source all of their milk from a small farm in Seymour Indiana where the cows live at pasture and eat non-gmo hay and silage grown on site. They are epic cheese makers!

Lean, savory and sharp, this cheese set the template for what many call Vermont Cheddar. The Shelburne comes from a farm that has diligently made top shelf cheddar for more than 100 years.  

Pair it with your favorite whiskey.

Martin Johnson, Cheesemonger

Is it a cheddar or a Gruyere?  

The answer is both!  It's a cheddar highlighted by savor and sharp flavors, but this unique Vermonter is made with some Gruyere cheese culture which yields sweet, nutty overtones too.  It melts beautifully and pairs with your favorite red wines.  

Martin Johnson, Cheesemonger

Pre-packaged. Approx size 6oz

Martin Johnson, Cheesemonger writes:  "Our most popular cheese, this French classic offers well balanced overtones of sweet grass and roasted cashews.  It pairs nicely with a wide variety of red and white wines."

Full Description:

Indulge in the exceptional flavors of the Selected Comté from Marcel Petite, carefully chosen by Essex Street Cheese based on flavor rather than age or price. This Comté reaches you at its peak ripeness, showcasing its beguiling aromas of hazelnuts, fried onions, and spring berries, complemented by hints of cut grass, wet earth, and straw. With its herbaceous and fruity profile, kissed with deep, luscious creaminess, this Comté is a cheese lover's delight. Pair it with crusty baguettes, dried fruits, and a glass of red wine for an exquisite tasting experience.

Ingredients: Raw cow’s milk, salt, cultures, animal rennet

Contains: milk

Background: Marcel Petite was an affineur (ager of cheese) who, in the 1960s, established an aging facility at a former military fort called Fort Saint Antoine. Though Marcel Petite passed away in the 1980s, his legacy and philosophy of aging has endured. Fromageries Marcel Petite specializes in slow, cool maturation of Comté, coaxing out complexity and nuance from the ripening wheels. Marcel Petite was the first person to practice this aging technique and, of the 150 fruitières in the region, the company works with 35. In their words, they are “the biggest of the little affineurs.” 7,000 tons of Comté passes through their caves each year and fruitières deliver cheese roughly twice per month, bringing in anywhere from 20 to 40 wheels at a time, depending on the size of their cooperative.

Lush, buttery and sumptuous in the very best way, this Swiss delight offers melt on your tongue goodness. 

The Rogue Creamery of Central Point, Oregon is world renowned for their distinctive blues, and the Rogue River Blue is their signature cheese.  A World Champion cheese, this blue is wrapped in Syrah grape leaves that have been macerated in pear brandy, thus two levels of rich sweetness balance the peppery and earthy overtones of the blue. 

- Martin Johnson Cheesemonger

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Farm Notes:

As fall comes to the Rogue Valley, cooler temperatures and wet weather bring renewed growth to the pastures. This is when our cow’s milk is at its best – and it’s only during these months that we make our limited edition, seasonal Rogue River Blue – a cheese named World Champion at the 2019/20 World Cheese Awards. After 9 to 11 months of careful tending in our aging caves, our team hand-wraps each wheel in organic, biodynamic Syrah grape leaves that have soaked in pear spirits. On the Autumnal Equinox each year, we celebrate the release of the year’s new Rogue River Blue Cheese

Classic English Cheddar is an entirely different experience than American cheddar.  These clothbound cheeses are dense and complex, highlighted by distinctive overtones of horseradish and mustard.  The Montgomery's is as classic as it comes; it's from Somerset County, home of a village called Cheddar, where the stuff was invented a long, long time ago.  

Pair with your favorite Bourbon.  

Martin Johnson, Cheesemonger

Buttery, herbal and deliciously subtle, this Vermont sheep cheese is widely regarded as one of the finest American artisan cheeses.  Pair with your favorite Pinot Noir.  

Martin Johnson, Cheesemonger

Sweet, buttery and smoky, this Vermont sheep cheese is infused with a bit of cow's milk and smoked over applewood.  Pair with your favorite Old World Chardonnay.  

Martin Johnson, Cheesemonger

Pasteurized cow’s milk | France

Sumptuous and very, very rich, this French triple crème is aged by the masterful Rodolphe Le Munier.

- Martin Johnson, Cheesemonger | 67 Gourmet

If you look for light, fresh cheese for whole family, from tolders to Grand'Ma then Cremeux des Citeaux is for you. Nature of together with jam, marmelade or salt and pepper, Cremeux means Creamy. Here you get the full taste of what a fresh artisanal cheese made from selected milk can give: Silky and light, simply very smooth cheese.

Cremeux des Citeaux can be used as a layer to top you finger food: Cremeux + Smoked Salmon or Cremeux with Dried ham or else you like to use as finger food!

A perfectly pungent little square of washed rind cheese from Martha’s Vineyard. Yeasty, lactic, and fruity when young - as it matures it takes on round, rich, briny, umami flavors. The Grey Barn and Farm’s proximity to the sea as well as it’s cool, damp climate, provide the perfect environment to develop this type of salty, briny, subtly funky washed rind cheese inspired by similar cheeses from northern France. The organic milk for Prufrock comes from The Grey Barn’s herd of twenty five grass fed cows and the deep, rich, nuanced flavor is a true testament to the fact that all great cheese begins with great milk.

Pairing notes: Crisp acidic white wines like Chenin Blanc and Gewurztraminer, medium bodied red wines like nebbiolo and Cabernet Franc, dry cider, Belgian-style trappist ales.

Whether as a hostess/host gift or merely as a self reward for whatever deserves rewarding at the time, these baskets are perfect for chilling on lazy days.

Snacks and treats for a picnic or an at home movie night, this collection features the amazing Smoking Goose cheddar/caramel/bacon popcorn, Tartuflanghe Truffle Chips, exceptional cheeses, wafer crackers, jam and brownies.

Selection by Martin Johnson, Cheesemonger | 67Gourmet