Seattle Cheese Festival - Educational Seminars

11:00-12:30pm - Northwest Terroir
Speaker: Jeffrey Roberts

What gives Northwest cheese its distinctive characteristics? How does the terroir, or the soil and climate, affect the flavor profile of the milk and, ultimately, influence the resulting complexities in the cheese? Jeffrey P. Roberts, the author of The Atlas of American Artisan Cheese, will share his expertise. Roberts hails from Montpelier, Vermont, and is the co-founder of the Vermont Institute for Artisan Cheese at the University of Vermont. He is also one of the organizers of the American Raw Milk Cheese Presidium for Slow Food USA. Seminar includes specifically paired wines.
$40

1:00-2:30pm - From the Mountains to the Plains: Exploring European Cheeses
Speaker: Daphne Zepos

Geography can determine the type of cheese that's made in a particular place, how it's made and the economic ramifications in a community. Daphne Zepos, who is the co-owner of Essex Street Cheese Co. in New York - which hand selects and imports only Comté cheese - will share her insight about how a cheese and its maker are shaped by the environment, and the unique qualities that distinguish a cheese made in the mountains or one that comes from a farm located below sea level. Zepos is also the former fromager at the Artisanal Premium Cheese Center in New York and consults on affinage, or the art of finishing and ripening cheese. Seminar includes specifically paired wines.
$40

3:00-5:00pm - The Art of Affinage
Speaker: Peter Dixon

In an ideal world, once a cheese leaves its creator, it becomes the priority of a discerning affineur who ages the cheese until it is perfectly ripe for eating and therefore ready to be sold. Peter Dixon, who has been making dairy foods in his home state of Vermont for more than 20 years, explains the craft of affinage through a discussion about various families of naturally rinded cheese. Dixon has worked at Guilford Cheese Company, Shelburne Farms, Vermont Butter and Cheese Company, and Westminster Dairy. For the past decade, Dixon has served as consultant on numerous projects, including creating new cheeses for Haystack Mountain Goat Dairy and aiding the startup of Estrella Family Creamery. Seminar includes specifically paired wines.
$40