Cheese or Dairy 2009

Outstanding Cheese or Dairy Product 2009: Cypress Grove Chevre Truffle Tremor

Mary Keehn started raising Alpine goats in the 1970s to provide a wholesome source of milk for her four children. Cheesemaking became a natural evolution and, in 1983, she started Cypress Grove Chevre, an Arcata, Calif.-based business known for its bestselling Humboldt Fog and now for its latest savory sensation and sofi™ winner—Truffle Tremor.

In 2007, Keehn wanted to create a cheese to complement her meek, fresh chevre, Purple Haze. “Mary’s always looking for new ingredients and she got her hands on some nice black summer truffles that she mixed with fresh chevre,” explains Bob McCall, marketing manager for Cypress Grove. “We got together for a tasting and it was horrible. It was bizarre how incompatible the ingredients were. We were ready to throw out the experiment, but Mary said no.” Instead, she aged the truffles (found by a dog named Diana, who sniffs them out in Alba, Italy) and fresh chevre (made from Humboldt County goats) for two and a half weeks. When she brought out the cheese for a tasting, she served it at room temperature and invited six employees to try it again. “Nobody spoke for what seemed like an eternity,” remembers McCall. “We were looking at each other with wide eyes like, ‘Are you tasting what I’m tasting?’ It was really, really good.” Subsequently, many happy customers have experienced that wide-eyed look when they taste the velvety texture of this soft-ripened cheese mixed with the earthy taste of the black truffles. Suggested retail price: $26.99/3-pound. cypressgrovechevre.com.–D. Moss