Mozzarella from the mountains

Corey Gilliland, an apprentice cheesemaker at Maplebrook Farm in Bennington, hand pulls stracciatella, a kind of fresh mozzarella that is stretched by hand and then soaked in cream. Joan K. Lentini photo

 

By STACEY MORRIS
Contributing writer

BENNINGTON, Vt.

Come the second weekend in August, local cheesemaker Mike Scheps will be headed north to the verdant fields of the Champlain Valley to show off his wares.

He’ll be taking part in the 11th annual Vermont Cheesemakers Festival, which this year will feature about 40 cheesemakers as well as dozens of other makers of artisanal food products, beer, wine and cider from across Vermont.

Although the statewide festival, held at Shelburne Farms, has grown steadily over the past decade as more cheesemakers have popped up around Vermont, Scheps remains one of just a handful of producers from Bennington and Rutland counties.

Scheps is third-generation master cheesemaker and co-owner of Bennington-based Maplebrook Farm, which makes more than a dozen varieties of cheese. The company began in 2004 with traditional and smoked mozzarella, made with milk from nearby farms.

Quality ingredients, plus the esoteric art of expertly stretching cheese curds into creamy globes of mozzarella, have proved a winning formula for Scheps and his partner Johann Englert.
Their alliance began in 2002 when Scheps waited on Englert one afternoon at his family’s business, Al Ducci’s, the renowned Italian specialty food market in Manchester. Englert, who lived in Boston at the time, was so impressed with the quality of Scheps’ mozzarella that she began peddling it to gourmet stores in Bean Town.

As the demand soared, she proposed to Scheps that they go into business together. Maplebrook Farm opened for business two years later.

“We became 50-50 partners on a handshake,” Scheps recalled. “Johann knew nothing about cheesemaking but was very persuasive. To this day, we’ve never had an argument. We each have our strengths and work off that.”

As the company celebrates its 15th year, Scheps sounded awed as he reflected on the its gradual but steady growth.

“We’ve gone from three people making cheese in a kitchen to 65 employees housed in a 50,000-square-foot building,” he said. “We still have our very first employee with us.”

 

More flavors and accolades
Maplebrook’s selection of cheeses has expanded to include traditional and smoked feta, ricotta alta, buratta and stracciatella. Scheps said all of Maplebrook’s cheese is still made with Vermont cow’s milk that is free of the artificial growth hormones rBGH and rBST.

“From the get-go, we paid extra not to have hormones in our milk,” he said.
Their cheeses are hand-wrapped, and Scheps insists on avoiding artificial flavoring for his smoked varieties and instead gently smokes his mozzarella and feta using cherry woodchips.
Maplebrook Farms’ mozzarella is now at Whole Foods and a variety of specialty shops across the country with the help of distributors such as Black River Produce, Provisions International and Seacrest Specialty Foods.

“We’ll have weeks this summer when we’re processing 400,000 pounds of milk in a single week,” Scheps said. “When the tomatoes come out of the ground, we’re going crazy.”

As Maplebrook’s selection of the cheeses has expanded, so have the accolades. The national and international awards include first place for buratta, ricotta alta and feta at the American Cheese Society’s annual competition.

Future plans include adding an aged fontina, a fruit-accented buratta, and a sliced provolone to the line, as well as building a small retail space at the factory.

In some ways, Scheps sees his company’s growth as a microcosm of Vermont’s expanding cheese industry.

“A lot has changed since I moved to Vermont in 2001,” he said. “More people have moved up this way, and the specialty food industry as a whole has grown. I love what I do: When someone loves eating what you love making, it’s a good feeling.”

 

Celebrating Vermont cheeses
At this year’s Vermont Cheesemakers Festival, to be held Sunday, Aug. 11, at Shelburne Farms, artisan cheesemakers from across the state will offer everything from nutty chunks of goat gouda to fresh cheddar curds, bloomy wheels of brie, and everything in between. The festival, put on by the Vermont Cheese Council, also will include demonstrations of small-batch cheese production.
Tom Bivins, the council’s executive director, said that when the Vermont Cheese Council was formed in 1996, there were only 19 cheesemakers in the state. He attributes the increase since then to growing consumer interest in artisanal cheese and artisanal food in general -- as well as growing concerns among consumers about where and how their food is produced.

“Vermont offers craft cheesemaking by a very diverse group of people,” Bivins said. “Also, Vermont is a very entrepreneurial state. There has also been quite a bit of diversification on dairy farms, and an increase in value-added food production as a way to increase the viability of Vermont’s dairy farms.”

Although most people attending the festival are from Vermont and neighboring states, he said the event also regularly draws cheese aficionados from as far away as Japan. The annual one-day festival has become so popular that the council has added an educational event, followed by a cheese dinner, on Saturday, Aug. 10, both at additional admission cost.

The festival is staged in and around Shelburne Farms’ historic Coach Barn, with Lake Champlain and the Adirondacks visible in the distance.

The cheese festival, which was recently ranked No. 5 among the top 10 specialty food festivals in the country by USA Today, will include about 40 cheesemakers as well as more than 80 vendors selling and providing samples of wine, spirits and foods complimentary to cheese.
“Foods like bread, pickles and homemade jams round it out,” Bivins said.

Maplebrook Farm, he added, has been a member of the Vermont Cheese Council since the company began and has returned to the festival year after year.

“Maplebrook Farm is an award-winning member of the Vermont cheese community and a member of the Vermont Cheese Council since their company began,” said Bivins.
“They have been leaders in quality mozzarella and ricotta production, as well as feta and stracciatella,” Bivins said. “It is always amazing to me how a visit to Vermont can change lives and bring all sorts of people like Johann Englert and her family to our state.”

Scheps said Maplebrook Farm will be presenting a new line of cheese spreads at the festival, with flavors such as red pepper flake, urban garlic, and pimento and olive. Several more flavors are in the research-and-development phase, he added.

“There’s nothing else like the Vermont Cheesemakers Festival,” Scheps said. “You experience a variety of Vermont products, you talk to cheesemakers, you learn. … It’s a celebration.”

The 11th Annual Vermont Cheesemakers Festival will take place from 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. Sunday, Aug. 11, at Shelburne Farms in Shelburne, Vt. General admission is $65 and includes a festival bag and wine glass. Attendance is limited, and tickets usually sell out. Visit www.vtcheesefest.com for more information or to purchase tickets; visit www.vermontcheese.com for more information about the Vermont Cheese Council.