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& Rockin ROLLIN 6 The Cheese Guide BY LORRIE BAUMANN Cypress Grove originally started in 1983 in a couple of old barns in McKinleyville, California, before moving 13 years ago to its present-day home in Arcata, a small agricultural community just north of Eureka and just south of the border between California and Oregon. "We realized we needed a proper cheesemaking facility," says Cody Wandel, Cypress Grove Quality Technician. "That gave us our first purpose-built cheese facility.... Our kind of cheese is very difficult to make and get to market in good condition. We've been evolving our ability to provide the optimum environment for the cheese." In those days, Cypress Grove Chevre, as it was known then, consisted of about 15 or 20 people following the lead of Founder Mary Keehn in making high quality goat cheeses that adventurous eaters who weren't familiar with goat milk cheeses found easy to love. An American food movement that valued the local, the sustainable, the artisanal, had just started gathering momentum, and Cypress Grove's Humboldt Fog exploded into the scene as an American Original with aesthetics that combined a visually striking appearance with a mellow flavor that reminded precisely no one of the barnyard. "We were there and we were well established," Wandel says "People in America decided they were willing to give goat cheese a try." Today, Cypress Grove is owned by Swiss holding company Emmi, a company with majority ownership by a cooperative of farmers and dairy operators that bought Cypress Grove from Keehn in 2010. Cypress Grove now employs over 70 people, including those at a new demonstration dairy made possible by Emmi's capital investment, and Keehn is still the spiritual leader guiding the values that appeal to consumers concerned about the environment and social justice as well as flavor. "Emmi's model is in the house that Humboldt Fog built