Cows, Goats and Water Buffalo Agree – It’s Nearly Time to Get Your Cheese On

Who doesn’t love cheese? Who doesn’t love an excuse to explore Sonoma County’s back roads? Who hasn’t bought their tickets to the 6th annual California Artisan Cheese Festival this March 23 through 25?

Great fun and yummy culinary adventures await those bold enough to book early. We mention this so you can start “banking” calories now to devote to the utter delicious experience of gourmet Wine Country cheese sampling that takes place the last weekend in March.

Consider the first event on the first day: Tour A begins on gorgeous Valley Ford Road at Bellwether Farms where the Callahan family produces sheep and cow’s milk cheese. Back in 1986, Cindy Callahan bought a few sheep to mow the pastures on their farm and the rest is artisan cheese history.

Further down the road, swing into the Bianchi-Moreda Ranch and Valley Ford Cheese Company. Karen Bianchi-Moreda is the fourth generation of her family to farm the ranch where 400 Jersey cows are milked daily.

Then head to Craig Ramini’s dairy farm and Ramini Mozzarella where Craig is raising a herd of water buffalo. Next time you have lunch with your foodie snob friends from the city you could tell them all about the finer points of water buffalo mozzarella - - and I emphasize COULD because this tour DID sound like a lot of fun to the folks who have already clicked BUY and made this day trip a SOLD OUT event.

But don’t cry over spilt milk. There are still oodles of cool things to do at the Artisan Cheese Festival.

Tickets always move fast, so if you’d like to opt for Tour B, get online and reserve your tickets NOW. Tour B includes visiting Petaluma’s Chileno Valley to visit the Pacheco Family Dairy and Achadinha Cheese Company.

Donna and Jim Pacheco have close to 1,600 nanny goats and produce farmstead, cheeses handmade by Donna.

Nicasio Valley Cheese Company is the next stop on Friday’s Tour B — the LaFranchi family’s organic, farmstead dairy and creamery. Established in 1919, descendants of the LaFranchi family milk 400 cows to create the cheeses of their Italian Swiss ancestors on over 1,000 organic acres.

A lovely day spent learning about cheese making and meeting cheese makers concludes with Barinaga Ranch in Marshall. Marcia Barinaga is continuing the sheepherding and cheese making traditions of her Basque ancestors on over 100 acres overlooking beautiful Tomales Bay where she makes farmstead sheep’s milk cheese.

Tour C covers Petaluma Dairy Farms and highlights the cheese made from sheep, cow and goat milk.

Tour D is entitled “Farm to Creamery: Two Sebastopol Dairies.”

Tour E, “From Dirt to Dinner Farm Tour and Feast” features Chef , a pioneer of wine country cooking and one of the first proponents of the farm to table philosophy.

Take a farm tour of the pastoral Giacomini Family Dairy overlooking Tomales Bay. Then visit The Fork, the state of the art event space at the farm and a focused cheese tasting with Kuba Hemmerling, cheese maker at Point Reyes Farmstead.

Tour F is for beer lovers and features a brewery tour plus cheese.  

And those choices are just for opening day, Friday, March 23!

This culinary cheese-a-ganza gets better each year, offering amazing behind-the-scenes, talk-to-your-cheese-maker, experiences.

The Sunday brunch at the is usually a sell out – maybe because “Bacon, Bubbles & Brunch + More Great Cheeses” is a $100 ticket that includes early entry to the Artisan Cheese Tasting and Marketplace (a $45 ticket) where more than 65 cheese and cheese-centric vendors await.

Sure, we all know our wines by now and know our way around tasting rooms. But if you love cheese too, take a look at the schedule and reserve your tickets.