#landaff

Landaff was first granted in 1764 to James Avery and over sixty other colonists.

Landaff -Jasper Hill Farm/Landaff Creamery

Milk: raw cow

Location:Landaff, New Hampshire

Texture:semi-firm

Flavor:It ranges. I've had wheels where it has super bright, fresh grass notes but also where it's been on the tangy, salted caper and beef broth side. (It was on the riper side by far.)

Notes: It is a Welsh style cheese that is made in New Hampshire and finished off aging in Vermont. I love this cheese and highly recommend it to everyone.

Age:4 - 6 months

Today's tasting is a relatively new cheese on the market: Kinsman Ridge, from Landaff Creamery. Doug and Debby Erb, the cheesemakers behind Landaff, are known for their relationship with The Cellars at Jasper Hill — Landaff makes the farmstead cheeses at their creamery in New Hampshire, and then sends it to Jasper Hill for affinage. 

Until now they've focused on one cheese, the eponymous Landaff (reviewed in Feb '12), a Welsh farmstead (Caerphilly) style raw cows milk natural rinded tomme. That focus was worthwhile: Landaff has been a big success and is a ubiquitous presence in finer melting recipes (eg grilled cheese) across the Northeast. To their lineup they have now added a second cheese, the Kinsman Ridge, a (in their words) "soft French Tome", semi-soft tomme with a washed and bloomy rind, similar to the French classic St. Nectaire.

The dusted white rind might lead one to think it's a classic bloomy, but the Kinsman is actually a washed rind cheese, that is allowed to develop a growth of white molds near the end of its aging. The rind is gray-amber, with a thin layer of bloomy rind, with deep grooves from the aging shelves scoring its surface and creating the distinctive rolling surface. The paste is pale yellow, semi-firm and tending towards the soft as it warms and lightly eyed.

Jasper Hill's motto is "A Taste of Place", in tribute to their efforts to create a new American consciousness of terroir and the importance of — in Heather Paxson's eloquent phrasing — local ecologies and economies of production; this is a cheese that exemplifies that philosophy, both in practice and in flavor. The first thing that strikes you upon tasting this cheese is "earthy" — buttery and milky in flavor, this cheese also has a deep flavor of the caves in which it ages, a pleasant mustiness and depth that immediately connects it to the environment in which it resided — what I like to think of as a "stony" flavor and aroma, because it reminds me of what you smell if you put your nose up close to a cave wall and inhale. There are also wonderful vegetal, tangy, nutty and meaty notes, rounding out a mild but complex flavor profile. 

Landaff did well by focusing on and perfecting one cheese for so long, but the Kinsman Ridge is a notable addition to their lineup and worth seeking out (the San Francisco Chronicle has nice profile on the Erb's).

American Cheese Month cheese of the day: Landaff Creamery Landaff

A no-nonsense name for a no-nonsense cheese. This is RUSTIC REALNESS.

Grab a wedge.

Go to the woods.

Bring apples.

Build something.

Landaff cheese, made by Landaff Creamery in New Hampshire, and affinaged at the Cellars at Jasper Hill.

A Welsh farmstead (Caerphilly) style raw cows milk natural rinded tomme, with a firm, flaky, lightly eyed paste. With a lightly citric aroma, in flavor it is buttery, tangy, grassy, nutty and mild with just a little bit of sharpness and bite at the end. An absolutely magnificent melter and frequently spotted sandwiched between crackling bread at grilled cheese joints around town. 

The San Francisco Chronicle has nice profile on Doug and Jenny Erb, the makers of Landaff, and how they came to produce this Caerphilly-style cheese. I love how the name of their hometown was the initial inspiration for their cheesemaking journey:

They knew that their town, Landaff, was named after a Welsh village, so Debby did some online digging to determine what cheeses might be typical in that part of the world.

A fine one, as it happens. Caerphilly, now made primarily in England, originated in South Wales, in the vicinity of Llandaff (the Welsh spelling).

The Erbs settled on Caerphilly as their model, and Doug went to England to work with Chris Duckett, the acknowledged master of artisan Caerphilly, and his disciple Jemima Cordle. Erb says that they shared all their procedures with him, and that the cheese he makes now - christened Landaff - follows their recipe. He can't get the same starter culture, but his methods are otherwise the same.

Rumor has it the Erbs are now working on a Tomme Crayeuse style cheese as well, stay tuned.