Day 511 : SCS Version 6.0, Dispatch # 1

This month I've decided to focus on Connecticut and Switzerland for our SCS features. Looking back over the past five months of SCS spotlights, I felt that both these locales were the obvious next steps in our cheese geography. For today's entree into each place, I decided to start with a cheese that could hypothetically start each cheese plate off right. Each has dialed up grassy, fresh, citrusy notes and are excellent beginnings to our CT / Swiss month.

Lebanon, Connecticut is home to Beltane Farm named after the ancient Pagan Celtic May Day celebrations where it was routine to feast on dairy products in honor of kidding season and the renewed promise of increased availability of milk. Beltane Farm makes the freshest, milky, lactic chevre that I have tasted outside of France. It will put those plastic wrapped goat cheese logs one finds at the supermarket to shame. Their chevre just melts in your mouth -- grassy, bright, and paste-y in all the right sort of ways! Fantastic with a glass of Sancerre or even a minerally Pinot Gris.

Hanging chevre courtesy of http://www.beltanefarm.com/

And what of its Swiss counterpart?

How about Tomme Vaudoise?

Crafted in Western Switzerland in the Vaud region, this a bloomy rind young cow's milk cheese. Fresh bright ivory paste is masked by a slight bloomy rind that is clean, soft, and creamy. Although it manages to bring to life the characteristics of a young bloomy rind cheese, it also has some of the classic tomme moments -- rustic, earthy, and slightly nutty. Buttery notes are offset with grassy, earthy nuances. It is an excellent cheese with an off-dry Riesling or a nice Gewürztraminer. This is springtime or early summertime in a cheese.

Image courtesy of http://www.switzerland-cheese.com/