19 7 6 13 5 25 17 4 Sonoma 20 County 27 23 24 10 18 26 8 14 11 116 22 21 1 2 d 3 a o 12 R a m lu eta es-P 16 ey R t. P N ic a s io V a 9 l le 15 N y R o a d Marin County Cheesemakers of Marin and Sonoma County 1 Achadinha Cheese Company 14 McClelland Dairy 2 Andante Cheese 15 Nicasio Valley Cheese Company 3 Barinaga Ranch Farmstead Sheep 16 Point Reyes Farmstead Cheese Company Milk Cheese 17 Pugs Leap 4 Bellwether Farms 18 Ramini Mozzarella 5 Bleating Heart Cheese 19 Redwood Hill Farm & Creamery 6 Bodega Artisan Cheese 20 Saint Benoit Yogurt 7 Bohemian Creamery 21 Spring Hill Cheese Company 8 Clover Stornetta Farms 22 Straus Family Creamery 9 Cowgirl Creamery 23 Toluma Farms 10 Epicurean Connection 24 Two Rock Valley Goat Cheese 11 Laura Chenel’s Chevre 25 Valley Ford Cheese Company 12 Marin French Cheese Company 26 Vella Cheese Company 13 Matos Cheese Factory 27 Weirauch Farm & Creamery A PROJECT OF THE MARIN ECONOMIC FORUM 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. To The Lafranchi family produces fantastic farmstead cheeses in the 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 town of Point Reyes to Tomales Bay Foods (also known as Cowgirl of fresh and soft cheeses and more local fare. For more, travel Creamery) where you can watch cheesemaking through the window north out of town on Highway 12 to Sebastopol to the Matos or take a more formal cheese class (reservations required). At the Cheese Factory to sample their St. George, a buttery semi-hard cheese counter taste Cowgirl cheeses and other local artisan cheeses. cheese made in the style of the Azores. 8. Clover Stornetta Farms 15. Nicasio Valley Cheese 22. Straus Family Creamery Petaluma Company Marshall 707-778-8448 5300 Nicasio Valley Road 707-776-2887 Explore the Sonoma cloverstornetta.com Nicasio www.strausfamilycreamery.com Marin Cheese Trail C 415-662-6200 C A family-owned and operated business, Clover nicasiocheese.com A family-owned organic creamery, Straus Stornetta Farms works closely with select C produces milk, ice cream, yogurt, butter, frozen family farms in Sonoma, Marin and Mendocino yogurt and soft-serve ice cream with cows’ milk counties. It processes and distributes their The Lafranchi family enjoyed the traditional 1. Achadinha Cheese Company cheeses of their Swiss homeland and dreamed sourced from its own dairy in the hills above high-quality dairy products under the Clover Tomales Bay and from three other local family Petaluma Stornetta and Clover Organic Farms brands. of making their own. Their organic dairy 707-763-1025 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 9. Cowgirl Creamery their first cheese in 2010 with Swiss mentor 23. Toluma Farms 80 Fourth Street Jim and Donna Pacheco’s 900 goats graze Maurizio Lorenzetti. Tomales Point Reyes Station 707-878-2041 year-round on verdant pastures at the Pacheco 415-663-9335 Family Dairy. The grass is supplemented 16. Point Reyes Farmstead tolumafarms.com www.cowgirlcreamery.com with alfalfa and brewers’ grain from local GS C Cheese Company breweries. Donna handcrafts all cheeses. 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 Station and began making handcrafted cheese easement. They began milking 200 goats in theforkatpointreyes.com 2. Andante Cheese with local organic milk. They now produce C 2007, and plan to start producing goat and Petaluma three fresh and six aged cheeses, and have a mixed-milk cheeses in 2011. second creamery in Petaluma. The Giacomini family makes classic Point 707-769-1379 Reyes Original Blue and semi-hard Point www.andantedairy.com 24. Two Rock Valley Goat Cheese Reyes Toma with milk from their own cows— ey 10. Epicurean Connection Two Rock Vall Goa CG processed within hours of milking. They offer k t C oc h R e 18812 Sonoma Highway, Suite C 707-762-6182 o e s Soyoung Scanlan—dairy scientist, music lover, hands-on and demo-style cooking classes at w e Sonoma T DD and former biochemist—gives musical names The Fork Culinary Center on their ranch. G 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 Swiss cheese like the type made by his relatives CG 17. Pugs Leap terroir, or microclimate, in which the milk and Petaluma in Switzerland led him to transition from multi- cheese are produced. Sheana Davis is a cheesemaker and proprietor 707-238-2126 generational dairy farming to producing a goat of the Epicurean Connection shop, selling pugsleap.com milk cheese aged on site at the DeBernardi 3. Barinaga Ranch artisan and farmstead cheeses, plus regionally Dairy. and sustainably produced products. After G Farmstead Sheep Milk Cheese 20 years of enthusiastic support for local After running their goat dairy, White Whale Marshall cheesemakers, she introduced her own artisan Farm, for several years, Anna and Dan Conner 25. Valley Ford Cheese Company www.barinagaranch.com were eager to enter the cheese world. They took Valley Ford cheese line in 2009. S over Pugs Leap in 2010, continuing the high- 707-293-5636 valleyfordcheeseco.com Barinaga Ranch continues the shepherding quality cheesemaking tradition of the previous 11. Laura Chenel’s Chèvre owners. Their herd is Certified Humane. C 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 www.laurachenel.com 18. Ramini Mozzarella have raised dairy cows on this prime farmland Tomales Tomales Bay. The rich, raw milk is made into a G in Sonoma County. Karen Bianchi Moreda 415-690-6633 Basque-style cheese from April to October. Laura Chenel pioneered American goat and her son Joe now make Swiss-Italian-style raminimozzarella.com cheesemaking. From small batches made on cheese from the milk of their Certified Humane 4. Bellwether Farms her Sebastopol farm in the 1970s to the new W Raised & Handled Jersey herd. Petaluma Sonoma creamery owned by French artisan Inspired by Italian mozzarella di bufala, Craig 707-478-8067 cheese producer Rians Group, the brand Ramini will use 100% water buffalo milk to 26. Vella Cheese Company produce a handcrafted cheese for his new www.bellwetherfarms.com continues to bring increased appreciation of 315 2nd Street East CS goat cheese to the U.S. company which is now in start-up mode. Sonoma Ramini Mozzarella is scheduled to be available 707-938-3232 • 800-848-0505 The Callahan family owns and operates in 2012. Bellwether Farms in the heart of Sonoma 12. Marin French Cheese vellacheese.com County. They began milking their sheep and C Company 19. Redwood Hill Farm & producing handcrafted cheeses in 1990, 7500 Red Hill Road The Vella family has made cheese in a making them one of the first to be part of the Petaluma Creamery stonewalled building on the historic Sonoma revival of American artisan cheesemaking. 800-292-6001 Sebastopol square since the company’s founding in 1931 by www.marinfrenchcheese.com 707-823-8250 Gaetano Vella. The cultures, the care and the redwoodhill.com personal hands-on techniques are the same as 5. Bleating Heart Cheese CG they were then. Sebastopol The oldest continuously operating cheese G www.bleatingheart.com factory in America, Marin French has Located among picturesque redwoods, family- CS specialized in handmade Brie and Camembert owned and operated Redwood Hill Farm has 27. Weirauch Farm & Creamery Fat Bottom Girl, a sheep cheese, was first since 1865. In 2005, it was the first American produced award-winning goat milk cheese Petaluma produced by Bleating Heart in 2009. Sonoma producer to best France and other European since 1978. Their Certified Humane Raised weirauchfarm.com & Handled herd benefits from a diversified Toma, a cow’s milk cheese, followed soon after. countries in international competitions. CS In 2010, Bleating Heart partnered with Sonoma breeding program, and their cheese, yogurt and kefir are minimally processed. Joel and Carleen Weirauch raise dairy sheep County ranchers Rex and Kerry Williams to 13.