Cheese Tasting Tips & Facts from Arethusa Dairy Farm

Jessica Ryan August 04, 2023

A few months ago I had the privilege of visiting Arethusa Dairy Farm to attend a special cheese tasting event which coincided with Connecticut’s Agriculture Week. The event was a celebration for their Europa cheese, an aged Gouda, that had just been awarded “Best in Show” in the US Championship Cheese Contest.
This was not my first trip to Arethusa but it was my first time meeting owner Tony Yurgaitis, Head Cheesemaker Eric Schmid, Agricultural Commissioner Bryan P Hurlburt and some of the local dairy farmers. This gathering was not just an occasion to celebrate the award-winning Gouda, but an opportunity for Tony to introduce his partnering farms and farmers that help with dairy production, as the brand has grown so much since those early days. The demand for their incredible, milk, eggnog, yogurt, cheese and ice-cream is at an all-time high.

Arethusa prides itself on the health and well-being of their cows – Cleanliness is next to godliness – and holds its partnering farms to the same high standards. The cows emotional health and well-being is as important as their physical health, and refer to this term as “cow welfare.” This all helps to ensure a superior product. Arethusa has won numerous awards and received accolades for all of their products and their brand is recognized and respected globally.

The first cheese to ever earn them an award was their Camembert, Karlie’s Gratitude. Because soft cheeses transition quickly, the cheesemaking team was able to perfect this relatively swiftly. Made in the tradition of a French Farmhouse Camembert, this soft cheese is exquisitely buttery… And speaking of buttery, it would behoove me to write about the Arethusa dairy farm and not mention their butter which is unrivaled in flavor and more European-like than American. This too took years to perfect. The high butterfat content is what makes it so special. The natural bacteria and culture that arises in the cream gives it its almost acidic-like flavor which yields the most beautiful flavor when combined with sea salt. The only thing needed is a good crusty baguette!

By comparison, the harder cheeses take a long time to make, up to a couple of years, and so the process to perfect a hard cheese is a lot more laborious and time consuming, and so for Europa, this is a true accomplishment, and something that Tony and his team ought to be incredibly proud of. Having had the opportunity to sample this aged Gouda, it’s easy to understand why it was recognized as Best in Show.

Did you know that there’s a right and a wrong way to eat cheese? Tony shares some tips on how to best enjoy it.

Cheese should always be served at room temperature. This applies to both soft and hard cheeses. As he discovered, the longer its left out, the better!
Many hard cheeses develop crystals. You may have noticed this. You may even have tried to cut them out, or worse yet, discarded the cheese altogether thinking that it had gone bad. Tony urges us all not to do this!
These crystals are a good thing – they’re a healthy byproduct. (Folklore actually suggests that they may even be good for the libido!)
When tasting cheese, cut a small slice – less is more here. Take a bite and let it roll around on your tongue to appreciate all the flavors and intricacies.
These hard cheeses should bend to the touch and not snap in half.

Production manager Chris Casiello shares some fun Arethusa Farm cheese facts:

The milk to make their cheese is sourced from their local family farms.
Arethusa goes through 1400 gallons of milk per day to make all their products.
Arethusa goes through over 1 million pounds of milk annually to make 100,000 pounds of cheese.
Arethusa goes through 600 gallons at a time to make their hard cheeses. (This is how much their cheese vat holds.)
The “Cheese magic” takes about four hours. This includes culture, rennet, heating and stirring it.
After such they end up with 500 pounds of cheese curd, which makes about 25 wheels.
The wheels are pressed so the curd knits and the wheels hold their shape, then the wheels are placed in a large salt bath called a brine.
They are brined for about 36 hours, and then they are sent to the caves as “green” cheeses to begin the aging process.
Some wheels are waxed to keep the moisture in and prevent mold from growing while other types are allowed to grow a natural rind.
These cheeses are then buttered to protect them while the rind forms on the cheese.
The care of the aging cheese is called affinage – a French term.
It only takes about 6 hours to form a wheel of cheese once they pick up the milk.
Their hard cheeses will age from 6 weeks up to almost 2 years.
There are about 5,000 wheels in the cheese caves.

Want to purchase some of this delicious cheese? Of course, you’ll find all of them at their Bantam store, but they can also be found on the cheese boards of your favorite restaurants and your local grocer. One cannot mention Arethusa without mentioning all of its award-winning products, from milk to yogurt, and of course their ice cream. If you find yourself in Bantam or at their New Haven location may I suggest their sweet cream chocolate chip or their cranberry chocolate chip with chunks of unsweetened cranberries? Unbelievable! And, for those of you who live a distance away, they have freezer bags so you can buy all the refrigerated and frozen goodies you want!

To learn more about Arethusa Dairy Farm and its earliest days, read about my 2020 visit here.