We sent our deli manager and cheese buyer, Elyse Hoang, to Vermont for a few days of artisanal cheese bliss.

Do happy cows produce better milk? While it’s challenging to measure bovine joy scientifically, Elyse Hoang, our deli manager and cheese buyer, perceived it firsthand during Cheese Camp at Jasper Hill Farm. “I didn’t know cows could prance,” she says. “But they were literally prancing, stoked to be eating fresh grass instead of hay in the barn. It was like The Sound of Music, gentle hills and spring flowers everywhere. This one cow named Pickle, a beautiful light gray cow, heard her name and pranced over like a dog to be petted. Everybody was obsessed with Pickle.”

Located in a remote part of mountainous Vermont referred to colloquially as the Northeast Kingdom, Jasper Hill Farm is making some of the best cheese in America. Their Whitney, a velvety-smooth raw milk cheese, won Best in Show — the grand prize — at the 2022 American Cheese Society awards.

How do they so consistently produce great cheese? “They never take the easy route if the harder route leads to better cheese,” says Elyse. “Everything is very time and labor intensive. They have this intense dedication to being hyperlocal and sustainable. Few cheesemakers grow their own hay.”

Brothers Mateo and Andy Kehlers bought the rocky hillside farm near the Canadian border in 1998. The site had an unused dairy barn and few job prospects. After five strenuous years of barn repairs, building a creamery, and a cave aging space beneath for cultivating natural rinds, their first cheeses hit the market in 2003. Just three years later they’d landed their first Best in Show award.

Cheese Camp offers an insider’s view of Jasper Hill’s process to key cheese professionals, showing how they consistently create award-winning cheeses. “Seeing their innovative approach to cheesemaking was enlightening,” says Elyse. “For a growing company that is making some really award-winning stuff, the Jasper Hill Creamery is a quaint operation. Mateo lives with his family above the original creamery. The new Creamery is attached to the original house. Now they’re building an attached visitor center.”

DeLaurenti carries five distinct Jasper Hill cheeses. Whitney, named after the longest-tenured team member at Jasper Hill, features notes of toasted nuts, cured ham, and sweet cream. Bayley Hazen Blue is a customer favorite, with assertive yet sweet, grassy flavors. Cabot Clothbound Cheddar is the product of a collaboration with Cabot’s Vermont Creamery, reminiscent of traditional English cheddar. Harbison, a soft-ripened cheese wrapped in spruce cambium, delivers woodsy, sweet notes. Lastly, the mild Moses Sleeper presents a savory blend of fresh milk, hay, toasted nuts, and butter.

Next time you’re putting together a cheese board you’d be hard pressed to do better than Jasper Hill cheeses. It’s cheeses like theirs that led Elyse to leave her career as a chef in Austin, Texas and move to Seattle to be a cheesemonger at DeLaurenti. “I was looking around for a career change, something easier on my body and mind, and I love cheese,” says Elyse. “The Texas heat is intense and friends suggested Seattle. So I looked up Seattle cheese shops and found DeLaurenti.”

We ship everywhere, including same-day orders 7 days a week to the greater Seattle area if you order by noon!