Driving Tours
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P N ic a s io V a 9 ll e N y 15 R o a d Marin County Cheesemakers of Marin and Sonoma County + Achadinha Cheese Company McClelland Dairy + Andante Cheese + Nicasio Valley Cheese Company + Barinaga Ranch Farmstead + Point Reyes Farmstead Cheese Company Sheep Milk Cheese Pugs Leap Bellwether Farms + Ramini Mozzarella Bleating Heart Cheese Redwood Hill Farm & Creamery Bodega Artisan Cheese Saint Benoit Yogurt Bohemian Creamery Spring Hill Cheese Company Clover Stornetta Farms + Straus Family Creamery Cowgirl Creamery + Toluma Farms Epicurean Connection Two Rock Valley Goat Cheese Laura Chenel’s Chevre + Valley Ford Cheese Company Marin French Cheese Company Vella Cheese Company Matos Cheese Factory Weirauch Farm & Creamery Open Locations + Protected Farmland Driving Tours Marin County Tour Sonoma County Tour Novato to Nicasio and Point Reyes Station (about 50 miles) Petaluma to Sonoma to Sebastopol (about 50 miles) Driving Directions Driving Directions Start at the Marin French Cheese Company right outside Novato, Starting in the historic agricultural town of Petaluma, with its where you can take a tour, picnic, and taste their award-winning charming turn-of-the-century buildings and quaint downtown, Rouge et Noir brie. Then travel west on the Point Reyes-Petaluma stop by the Petaluma Creamery where you can sample Spring Hill Road, make a quick detour onto Nicasio Valley Road to the quaint Cheese (for tours of their creamery please call ahead). Then head village of Nicasio. There you’ll find Nicasio Valley Cheese Company. east out of town via Highway 116 and follow signs to Sonoma. The Lafranchi family produces fantastic farmstead cheeses in the To visit one of the oldest cheesemakers in the area, stop by Vella artisanal tradition of their Swiss-Italian cousins in Switzerland. Then Cheese Company, known for their famous aged dry Jack. While retrace your steps to the Point Reyes-Petaluma Road and into the still in Sonoma drop by the Epicurean Connection for the flavors of town of Point Reyes to Tomales Bay Foods (also known as Cowgirl fresh and soft cheeses and more local fare. For more, travel north Creamery) where you can watch cheesemaking through the window out of town on Highway 12 to Sebastopol to the Matos Cheese or take a more formal cheese class (reservations required). At the Factory to sample their St. George, a buttery semi-hard cheese cheese counter taste Cowgirl cheeses and other local artisan cheeses. made in the style of the Azores. 8. Clover Stornetta Farms 15. Nicasio Valley Cheese 22. Straus Family Creamery Petaluma Company Marshall Explore the Sonoma 707-778-8448 5300 Nicasio Valley Road 707-776-2887 Marin Cheese Trail cloverstornetta.com Nicasio www.strausfamilycreamery.com C 415-662-6200 C FM O A A family-owned and operated business, Clover nicasiocheese.com A family-owned organic creamery, Straus Stornetta Farms works closely with select C FM F M P O A produces milk, ice cream, yogurt, butter, frozen family farms in Sonoma, Marin and Mendocino The Lafranchi family enjoyed the traditional yogurt and soft-serve ice cream with cows’ milk 1. Achadinha Cheese Company counties. It processes and distributes their cheeses of their Swiss homeland and dreamed sourced from its own dairy in the hills above Petaluma high-quality dairy products under the Clover of making their own. Their organic dairy Tomales Bay and from three other local family 707-763-1025 Stornetta and Clover Organic Farms brands. was the perfect resource to enable them to farms. For tours, check malt.org. www.achadinha.com pay homage to their heritage. They made G FM F A 9. Cowgirl Creamery their first cheese in 2010 with Swiss mentor 23. Toluma Farms Jim and Donna Pacheco’s 900 goats graze 80 Fourth Street Maurizio Lorenzetti. Tomales year-round on verdant pastures at the Pacheco Point Reyes Station 707-878-2041 415-663-9335 16. Point Reyes Farmstead tolumafarms.com Family Dairy. The grass is supplemented with alfalfa and brewers’ grain from local www.cowgirlcreamery.com Cheese Company G S FM F A breweries. Donna handcrafts all cheeses. C FM M P O A Point Reyes Station David Jablons and Tamara Hicks purchased Achadinha also sells its own smoked summer In 1997, Sue Conley and Peggy Smith built 415-663-8880 their dairy in 2003, restored the land and goat sausage. a small creamery in downtown Point Reyes pointreyescheese.com protected it with an agricultural conservation easement. They began milking 200 goats in Station and began making handcrafted cheese theforkatpointreyes.com 2. Andante Cheese with local organic milk. They now produce C FM F M A 2007, and plan to start producing goat and three fresh and six aged cheeses, and have a mixed-milk cheeses in 2011. Petaluma The Giacomini family makes classic Point second creamery in Petaluma. 707-769-1379 Reyes Original Blue and semi-hard Point www.andantedairy.com Reyes Toma with milk from their own cows— 24. Two Rock Valley Goat Cheese C G FM processed within hours of milking. They offer Two Rock Valley Goa 10. Epicurean Connection k t C oc h R e 122 West Napa Street 707-762-6182 o e hands-on and demo-style cooking classes at s Soyoung Scanlan—dairy scientist, music lover, w e Sonoma The Fork Culinary Center on their ranch. T DD and former biochemist—gives musical names G FM F M A DeBernardi Dairy, Inc. 707-935-7960 to her creamery and cheeses. Her products Dairyman Don DeBernardi’s desire to make are designed to reveal the essence of the www.sheanadavis.com 17. Pugs Leap Swiss cheese like the type made by his relatives terroir, or microclimate, in which the milk and C G FM M P Petaluma in Switzerland led him to transition from multi- cheese are produced. Sheana Davis is a cheesemaker and proprietor 707-876-3300 generational dairy farming to producing a goat [email protected] milk cheese aged on site at the DeBernardi of the Epicurean Connection shop, selling 3. Barinaga Ranch artisan and farmstead cheeses, plus regionally G FM F A Dairy. Farmstead Sheep Milk Cheese and sustainably produced products. After After running their goat dairy, White Whale 20 years of enthusiastic support for local Farm, for several years, Anna and Dan Conner 25. Valley Ford Cheese Company Marshall cheesemakers, she introduced her own artisan www.barinagaranch.com were eager to enter the cheese world. They took Valley Ford cheese line in 2009. S F M over Pugs Leap in 2010, continuing the high- 707-293-5636 quality cheesemaking tradition of the previous valleyfordcheeseco.com Barinaga Ranch continues the shepherding 11. Laura Chenel’s Chèvre owners. Their herd is Certified Humane. C FM F A traditions of Marcia Barinaga’s Basque Sonoma ancestors in Spain. Sheep graze year-round on 707-996-4477 Five generations of the Bianchi/Grossi family more than 100 acres of pasture overlooking 18. Ramini Mozzarella have raised dairy cows on this prime farmland www.laurachenel.com Tomales Tomales Bay. The rich, raw milk is made into a in Sonoma County. Karen Bianchi Moreda Basque-style cheese from April to October. G 415-690-6633 and her son Joe now make Swiss-Italian-style Laura Chenel pioneered American goat raminimozzarella.com cheese from the milk of their Certified Humane cheesemaking. From small batches made on W F Raised & Handled Jersey herd. 4. Bellwether Farms her Sebastopol farm in the 1970s to the new Petaluma Inspired by Italian mozzarella di bufala, Craig Sonoma creamery owned by French artisan Ramini will use 100% water buffalo milk to 707-478-8067 cheese producer Rians Group, the brand 26. Vella Cheese Company www.bellwetherfarms.com produce a handcrafted cheese for his new 315 2nd Street East continues to bring increased appreciation of company which is now in start-up mode. C S FM M goat cheese to the U.S. Sonoma Ramini Mozzarella is scheduled to be available 707-938-3232 • 800-848-0505 The Callahan family owns and operates in 2012. vellacheese.com Bellwether Farms in the heart of Sonoma 12. Marin French Cheese County. They began milking their sheep and C M P Company 19. Redwood Hill Farm & The Vella family has made cheese in a producing handcrafted cheeses in 1990, 7500 Red Hill Road stonewalled building on the historic Sonoma making them one of the first to be part of the Petaluma Creamery Sebastopol square since the company’s founding in 1931 by revival of American artisan cheesemaking. 800-292-6001 707-823-8250 Gaetano Vella. The cultures, the care and the www.marinfrenchcheese.com redwoodhill.com personal hands-on techniques are the same as 5. Bleating Heart Cheese C G M P A Sebastopol G FM M A they were then. The oldest continuously operating cheese www.bleatingheart.com Located among picturesque redwoods, family- factory in America, Marin French has C S FM owned and operated Redwood Hill Farm has 27. Weirauch Farm & Creamery specialized in handmade Brie and Camembert produced award-winning goat milk cheese Petaluma Fat Bottom Girl, a sheep cheese, was first since 1865. In 2005, it was the first American since 1978. Their Certified Humane Raised weirauchfarm.com produced by Bleating Heart in 2009. Sonoma producer to best France and other European & Handled herd benefits from a diversified Toma, a cow’s milk cheese, followed soon after. countries in international competitions. C S FM F M O A In 2010, Bleating Heart partnered with Sonoma breeding program, and their cheese, yogurt Joel and Carleen Weirauch raise dairy sheep County ranchers Rex and Kerry Williams to and kefir are minimally processed.