Madison, WI – At the 29th Annual American Cheese Society Judging and Competition in Madison, Rogue Creamery blue cheeses won the trifecta, capturing 1st, 2nd & 3rd place awards. Rogue River Blue and Caveman Blue won 1st & 2nd Place respectively, in the Rinded Blue- Veined Cow’s Milk category. Smokey Blue won 2nd Place in the Open Cow’s Milk, Smoked Cheese category and Echo Mountain Blue won 3rd place in the Rindless Blue-Veined Sheep’s Milk / Mixed Milks category. ACS is the largest cheese competition in North America, and is often referred to as the “Academy Awards of Cheese“. All 4 of these exquisite artisan cheeses have also won recognition @ international awards.
“We are grateful to the ACS judges for recognizing Rogue River Blue with this great honor. We are thankful to our team, and our dairy. This is a blue that many contribute to, so there are many to thank. We are grateful to all you cheese professionals who tell our story”, said David Gremmels cheesemaker and President of Rogue Creamery. Rogue River Blue has won 10 national and international awards over the last decade, and it was recognized recently both as Best American Cheese and as one of the Top 16 Cheeses in the World @ the 2012 World Cheese Awards .It won Best in Show @ the ACS Awards in both 2011 & 2009.
Rogue River Blue is handmade using autumnal equinox milk from Brown Swiss and Holstein cows’ milk, certified sustainable by Food Alliance. The cows graze in 1650 foot elevation pastures along the Rogue River, where they eat a variety of grasses, wild herbs, and wild flowers supplemented with grass hay, alfalfa and grain grown on the farm. The five pound (2.2 kg) wheels are made by hand and aged in specially-constructed caves. The cheese ripens from naturally occurring molds found in the Rogue River Valley and, therefore, reflects a deep connection to the land. The creamery also made history in 2007 by becoming the first American exporter of raw milk cheese to the EU; their cheese is carried in Whole Foods Market, Neal’s Yard Dairy, London and Fromagerie Laurent Dubois, Paris.
Rogue Creamery was founded in 1933. The Vella family from Sonoma, California acquired it from a co-op in Southern Oregon in 1935. In the 1950s it began making some of the country’s best blue cheese. In 2002, Ig Vella selected Cary Bryant and David Gremmels as the new owners and they now produce a variety of award-winning blue and cheddar cheeses. They offer the only vertically integrated third party certified sustainable cheese in the U.S. Its local dairy, Rogue View, and creamery, Rogue Creamery, are both certified sustainable by Steritech and organic by Oregon Tilth.
Source: Rogue Creamery