Beware: big, big writeup comin’ at ya!

Back at the beginning of the year, FUCheese made some general goals and we all agreed that we really wanted to go to more cheese events and meet more makers of cheese. Since we’d really only scratched the (delicious) surface of the cheese world, we were really wanting to broaden our horizons and get a better understanding of what our region had to offer. Amazingly and luckily, the Pacific Northwest has a lot to offer! We noted that the Oregon Cheese Guild was putting on a festival in March at the Rogue Creamery. My husband and I had such a good time visiting the Creamery last August that I was eager to go back again. Nicole and I started looking into accommodations since Central Point, Oregon, is a good five-hour drive from Portland, and discovered yurt rentals at Valley of the Rogue State Park. The price was right — $27/night — and we love camping so we made the reservation. Our friends Jen and Linnea decided to join us and we headed down Friday afternoon with a car loaded with camp gear and sleeping bags.

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We just got back from a weekend down in southern Oregon attending the Oregon Cheese Guild Cheese Festival held at the Rogue Creamery in Central Point and an open house at Pholia Farms, a dairy producing wonderful goat cheeses in Rogue River, Oregon. It was a fantastic weekend, packed with cheese and wine and wonderful people. Before we start sorting through our photographs and organizing a writeup, we wanted to thank some really wonderful people….

First off, the festival was amazing — very organized — and all the cheese producers and winemakers brought delicious products and were so enthusiastic about what they were making. It was incredibly informative and a lot of fun.

David and Cary, co-owners of the creamery — thank you for answering our questions and arranging a tour for us, you took the event from great to truly memorable and it was a delight and honor to meet you.

Cheesemaker Craig Nelson and Anna Campbell for the informative and entertaining tour of the plant. You’ll always be Captain Cheddar to us!

Vern and Gianaclis Caldwell at Pholia Farms for touring us around and answering our questions about home cheesemaking, living off the grid and chasing goats.

Last but not least, it was fantastic to meet Bret Gilmore of Madrone Mountain Vineyard, if he’s not the King of Applegate Valley then he’s certainly the Court Jester.

More writeup to follow….