A Revival of Cheese Making in Rural Vermont : Now is the time to spread a blanket on fallen leaves and sample the bounty of traditional breads and Cheddars.

To those who know American cheese as the individually wrapped, orange squares of processed stuff on supermarket shelves, a tour of Vermont cheese makers offers not just a chance to learn more about the surprising diversity of this culinary art but an excellent excuse to linger in the countryside now tinted red and orange by the changing light of fall. Add a bottle of wine or Vermont’s own Catamount ale and a basket of the fresh items Vermont is known for (rustic breads and pastries, smoked meats, farm-stand vegetables and apples) and visitors can make a day of it, assured of a memorable picnic.

Vermont has several cheese makers who welcome visitors and the chance to show off their varied products, and whose picturesque rural locations offer country flavor as distinctive and pleasurable as the cheese.

In addition to Shelburne Farms, Vermont’s grandest estate which is just south of Burlington, cheese is made in the village icon of Grafton, in the rural farm town of Cabot, and in Plymouth, the knobby Vermont hilltop where Calvin Coolidge was born. This happens to be serendipitous necessity: The main ingredient for cheese is milk, and a proximity to local cow-filled pastures makes perfect sense, as well as a perfect place to visit.

Though Vermont is a state best known for its skiing, maple syrup and Green Mountains, cheese making has a long tradition here. In the latter 19th Century, the state had 200 small cheese factories, and in the 1860s, it briefly was the nation’s largest cheese producer. Every general store then kept a wheel of locally made “store cheese” on the counter.

The cheese-making art that every Vermont farm wife knew faded when refrigeration made transport and sale of fluid milk profitable, and today states such as Wisconsin and New York are the major cheese producers. But the last decade has revived cheese making in Vermont, partly due to an abundance of fresh milk in this dairy state, but also because of a state-of-mind: Vermont has cultivated a reputation for premium, wholesome, high-quality foods, and manufacturing of organically grown and premium products has boomed. Cheese is no exception.

Every day when Mariano Gonzalez goes to work at Shelburne Farms, he keeps alive a 200-year-old New England tradition. Gonzalez, a 29-year-old native of Paraguay, is a Cheddar maker, and his handiwork traces its roots back to generations of New England farm wives and Vermont cheese makers. He is also part of a cheese renaissance that affords visitors a new, as well as tasty, raison d’etre to tour the Green Mountains. Gonzalez makes Cheddar four days a week at the bucolic 1,000-acre Shelburne Farms estate. Surrounded by 60 gentle Brown Swiss cows--his faithful suppliers--he creates a sharp but creamy Cheddar. Critics think Shelburne Farms makes one of America’s best Cheddars: It won Best of Show in 1991 from the American Cheese Society.

“All of the Vermont cheese companies are very low-tech,” says Roberta MacDonald of Cabot Creamery, Vermont’s largest Cheddar producer which averages 11 million pounds of aged Cheddar a year. Even Cabot uses a labor-intensive, hands-on process, and like Shelburne Farms, no additives or enzymes are used to speed up aging. “It’s much slower this way. It’s like trying to do scrambled eggs instead of a souffle: It’s a substantial difference if you have a good palate,” she says. Critics seem to agree. Cabot’s Cheddar was voted best in the United States for 1990--the first “ivory” Cheddar ever to receive that award. (All Vermont Cheddars are naturally “ivory” colored, unlike Wisconsin Cheddars, which are yellow.)

While many of Vermont’s cheese makers trace their history and products--Cheddar and variations, such as washed curd and granular curd cheese--back to the 1800s, several new cheese makers are following new directions. Vermont Butter and Cheese Co. produces creamy mascarpone cheese and Vermont chevre, a delicious goat cheese that is herbed or peppered. Patch Road Cheese Co. in Putney produces an unusual aged sheep’s milk cheese, plain or rolled with pepper or rosemary.

And these are just a few of the possibilities. To better explore them, here’s a tasting tour of the Vermont countryside with a guide to filling the picnic basket, and filling the day with things to see and do in four different areas of the state, each with its own character and landscape: around the city of Burlington in the northwest part of the state; in the rolling farm fields surrounding Cabot east of Burlington; in the hills and valleys of Grafton and Plymouth, in southern Vermont, and in Putney on the southeastern tip of Vermont.

Shelburne Farms is off Vermont 7, five miles south of Burlington, the hub of northern Vermont. The cheese is just one of many reasons to visit. The 1886 Webb-Vanderbilt estate was landscaped by Frederick Law Olmsted, who also designed New York’s Central Park, and it’s a visual paradise, with Vermont’s grandest views of the Adirondack Mountains and Lake Champlain.

A working farm and nonprofit organization dedicated to agriculture and education, in addition to being a cheese plant, Shelburne Farms has a hands-on children’s farm center, and a Visitor Center/Farm Store that offers almost everything necessary for a picnic: cheese; the farm’s own hearty sourdough French bread; smoked Vermont ham and mustards, and other food products, along with a video of the estate’s fascinating history. For wine, stop at the Cheese Outlet on Pine Street in Burlington. Picnickers can head out on the two-mile-long walking trail, stopping at Lone Tree Hill to set out a blanket and also feast on the panoramic view.

Guided public tours are given daily through October from 9 a.m. to 3:30 p.m. for $5.50, and include stops at the Cheddar plant when cheese is being made. (It is made only every other day.) Shelburne Farms products are also available by catalogue.

Cabot Creamery is in north-central Vermont in the rural farm town of Cabot, 21 miles north of Montpelier, the state capital. Cabot has a fine town green for picnicking or, for those who prefer, the folks at Cabot can offer directions out to one of Cabot’s member farms: the creamery is a co-op, founded back in 1919, with more than 300 members.

There are tours of the plant (Monday-Saturday, 8 a.m.-4:30 p.m., Sunday, 11 a.m.-4:30 p.m.), a video about cheese making and lots of complimentary samples of Cabot cheese, dairy and Vermont food products. Cabot produces everything from yogurt and cottage cheese to butter and a wide range of hard cheeses. The black-waxed bricks of extra sharp, aged 14 months, will please Cheddar connoisseurs, though some might like the slightly musty, sharper bite of the crumbly “hunter’s cheese” Cheddar. Cabot also produces several Monterey Jacks, herbed cheeses and low-fat cheeses; the only low-fat with any real flavor is the newest introduction, a surprisingly good reduced-fat Cheddar (75% less fat).

Picnickers should stop along Vermont 2 in the nearby town of Marshfield at Rainbow Sweets, a down-home European cafe that features wonderful bread, pastries and sweets. The white-columned Marshfield General Store offers wine and Vermont seasonal goods, soft ice cream and a slice of country life. Other gourmet items on Vermont 2 are available at the Maple Valley Cafe in Plainfield, south of Cabot.

Vermont Butter & Cheese Co. is a cheese-making newcomer, begun back in 1984, located in Websterville, south of the granite-quarrying city of Barre in central Vermont. When it was started there were only two other goat cheese manufacturers in the entire United States, said co-owner Robert Reese. Within three years, its pure-white, creamy soft chevre (which also comes with herbs or cracked pepper) won a blue ribbon at the annual American Cheese Society judging. Vermont Butter has since branched out to create several other French-style products that have also won awards and critical accolades: creme fraiche, fromage blanc and mascarpone.

While the plant is an industrial site and not set up for visitors, its products are widely sold in health and specialty food stores in New England (and at Mrs. Gooch’s in the Los Angeles area). Fromage blanc is a wonderful light cheese made from skimmed cows milk. It can be used for cheesecakes, spreads and dips. Creme fraiche is a cultured cream, a staple of French cuisine that won’t curdle. Allison’s mascarpone is a creamy, sweet dessert cheese that is used in many Italian desserts.

Another producer, Plymouth Cheese in southern Vermont was founded in 1890 by Col. John Calvin Coolidge, father of the 30th President, and is now owned and managed by the President’s son. A visit here affords not only a glimpse of old-fashioned cheese making, but of history: Silent Cal’s laughingly simple “Summer White House,” the home where he was born and the serene hilltop village of Plymouth, a national historic site. This is one of Vermont’s most bucolic and charming vistas. The authentic period perennial garden, next to the 1840 Carpenter Gothic church, is a fine picnic spot from which to observe the hillsides turning color.

The thriving cheese factory hand-makes granular curd, a variation of Cheddar that has a more open texture, a result of not letting the curds mat together. It has a wonderful old-time pleasant bite and is reputedly closest to the original Cheddars made by the colonists. Much prized, a brisk mail-order business ships most of the 2,200-pound weekly production all over the United States.

Along with cheese in plain, caraway and sage flavors, there are other traditional New England specialties for sale such as Indian pudding, corn relish and brown bread. The factory is open to visitors from 8 a.m. to 5:30 p.m. daily. For picnickers, one-stop shopping to complement the cheese is available at amazing Gillingham’s in Woodstock, which has everything from imported pates and crackers, wines and beers to condiments such as Mongolian fire oil. It’s a bit pricey, but your picnic basket won’t lack for flavor or variety. For fine breads, Woodstock’s Dunham Hill Bakery should not be missed.

Grafton Village Cheese Co. in southern Vermont was started in 1890 and then restarted in 1966 in the beautifully restored village of Grafton, home to the philanthropic Windham Foundation. The foundation has made the village into a Vermont version of Colonial Williamsburg, its covered bridge, old tavern and white-clapboard homes a showcase of traditional New England landscape. Grafton’s cheese is traditional as well, made by hand with all natural ingredients and unpasteurized milk. It is a bit more crumbly and dry than Shelburne’s and Cabot’s cheeses, a result of using all Jersey cows, but the flavor has the characteristic fine bite of the best Cheddars, especially the extra sharp.

Grafton also makes sage, dill and smoked Cheddar, producing some 500,000 pounds each year in all. Cheese making begins at 7:30 a.m. and usually finishes by 3, Monday through Thursday, and visitors are welcome to watch or browse in the cheese and catalogue shop, which sells smoked hams, condiments and other fine Vermont food products to fill a picnic basket.

Grafton also has an excellent historical exhibit for visitors, and the Grafton Country Store stocks wines and edibles. There are pleasant picnic tables by the cheese factory and its covered bridge here, but if you visit, also consider letting someone else set your table by dining at the lovely, historic Grafton Inn, one of Vermont’s finest.

Last on our tour is Patch Road Cheese Co., which is also in prime apple-orchard country and great for fall visits. Patch Road is in the hilly, rural town of Putney in the southeastern tip of Vermont and is Vermont’s newest cheese company. It is a small farmstead cheese company that welcomes visitors who want to picnic and learn about sheep cheeses or see the company’s flock. Like Cheddar, Patch Road cheese is aged, but only for 60 days, and production by hand is only during summer when the sheep are grazing. The flavor is pleasant and distinctive, with the slight bite of Parmesan but the rich, creamy consistency of Cheddar.

The shapes are also unusual, since the cheeses--plain, herbed or peppered--are made in three-quarter-pound fluted basket molds. Owners David and Cindy Major, who say their cheese is different from European sheep cheeses, ship all three varieties. Putney is a lovely back-to-the-landers town filled with orchards and berry farms, and a visit any time from midsummer to fall also offers a cornucopia of fresh farm-stand fruits and vegetables. For fine wine, bread and other picnic items, make sure to visit the Putney Co-op, a culinary and cultural experience in any season.

GUIDEBOOK

Vermont Cheese Makers

Shelburne Farms, Shelburne, Vt. 05482, (802) 985-8686. Also a hotel, the Shelburne House Inn. Call ahead (802) 985-8498 for reservations.

Cabot Creamery, Cabot, Vt. 05647, (802) 563-2231 and (802) 563-2650 for catalogue sales and information.

Vermont Butter & Cheese Co., Box 95, Pitman Road, Websterville, Vt. 05678, (802) 479-9371 for mail order and recipes.

Plymouth Cheese Corp., P.O. Box 1, Plymouth, Vt. 05056, (802) 672-3650 for order forms and information.

Grafton Village Cheese, P.O. Box 87, Townshend Road, Grafton, Vt. 05146, (800) 472-3866 or (802) 843-2221 for catalogue and information. For reservations or dining at the Grafton Inn, call (802) 843-2231.

Patch Road Cheese Co., RFD3, Box 265, Putney, Vt. 05346, (802) 387-4473 for orders and information.

For more information: A brochure called Vermont Cheese is available from the Vermont Department of Agriculture, 116 State St., Montpelier, Vt. 05602, (802) 828-2416.