The American Cheese Society’s annual conference took place last week in Sacramento, dubbed the City of Cheese for the occasion, the first time the California capital has hosted the high-profile event since 2014. Attendees arrived with strong appetites for both cheese talks and samples.

At the welcome session, English javelin thrower and cheesemonger Jen Grimstone-Jones (co-owner of Pangbourne Cheese Shop in the U.K.) recalled a cheese so good it prompted her to propose to her now-wife Ali, leading to their wedding with a tiered cheese tower in lieu of a wedding cake. A QR code projected on a screen led other attendees to share their own anecdotes and inquiries: Can you make cheese from cat’s milk? Can you make candles out of a cheese’s wax covering?

This year’s competition and multi-day conference, which drew more than 1,000 attendees, attempted to answer these and many other questions about the business, science and art of cheese. It also offered an opportunity to showcase the diversity of American cheese — now far evolved from the yellow blocks once doled out by the USDA — and Northern Californian cheese in particular.

A culture-loving community

The four-day conference kicked off on Wednesday, June 23, with a cheese crawl across Sacramento restaurants and bars. Attendees broke out in a near-cultish chant — “Cheese people are the best people” — and met encouraging (or perhaps afraid) nods from passersby.

Sara Arbarian, owner of The Rind in Midtown, hosted one of the stops. “I left the shop around 2:30 a.m. still feeling all the energy from the crowd,” she said after the event, noting how extra rewarding the leftover mac-and-cheese tasted washed down with some of the good wine served at the crawl.

While some attendees traveled from far afield to attend the conference, many were more local, including Davis resident Sacha Laurin. A frequent ACS attendee and volunteer, she developed innovative programs at San Francisco’s renowned Cheese School. Today, she is the innovation lead and cheesemaker for Climax Foods, a vegan cheese producer in Berkeley, and firmly believes that dietary limitations shouldn’t mean sacrificing the joy of cheese.

“My love of cheese started while I was living in Brie, France,” she recalled. “I was a flight attendant at the time, and I was basically living off cheese, bread and wine — plus spinach for greens — because those were the cheapest options available.” But beyond its practicality, she fell deeply in love with the vibrant ritual of frequenting local markets — a ritual she was able to continue after moving to Davis.

In the conference’s subsequent presentations, panels and classes, attendees could learn about topics including how universities are driving the future of cheese or why coagulants matter. More technical seminars presented information on calcium and other minerals critical in the cheesemaking process, ways to build a bloomy rind and food safety concerns related to the affinage of soft cheeses.

One panel and tasting session, “California Love: Exploring off the Beaten Track California Cheese and Wine Pairings,” called attention to how tapping into cheese and wine culture can bolster local community building and agritourism. Hosted by Sarah Dvorak, founder of Mission Cheese in San Francisco, and sisters Marnie and Lydia Clarke, founders of founders of Cheese Cave in Claremont, the talk highlighted off-the-beaten path cheesemakers such as Monterey County’s Garden Variety Cheese and San Luis Obispo County’s Stepladder Ranch.

Judgment day

One of the most anticipated events of the conference was the award ceremony for the The American Cheese Society Judging and Competition, which took place at the University of Minnesota in June. Judges evaluated a whopping 1,588 cheeses and cultured dairy products from 228 companies and across 136 different categories. (The first ACS competition back in 1987 started with 89 entries.) All products are judged anonymously in technical and aesthetic categories.

Each judge spent about seven minutes per cheese, deducting points for flaws and defects in the technical; awarding points for outstanding qualities in the aesthetic categories. California’s dairy received a sizable share of the total cheese awards, from a range of categories from labneh and drinkable yogurts to sheep’s cheese and rindless goat cheeses. After the awards ceremony on Thursday, attendees could meet some of the winners and taste their entries at Friday’s Meet the Cheesemaker’s event.

The alpine-style cheese Alfred le Fermier of Fromagerie la Station in Quebec was awarded Best of Show in this year’s competition, along with ranking first in the Farmstead category. “I was very touched. It was so not expected,” said head cheesemaker Simon-Pierre Bolduc after initially hearing the results. Alfred le Fermier, named after Bolduc’s great-grandfather and now the dairy’s signature product, was one of the first cheeses it started making back in 2004.

While Canada took the top prize, more than 50 other awards went to California-based cheesemakers. Some local standouts include Central Valley Cheese in Turlock, which won third place for its labneh, and Rumiano Cheese Company in Willows, which won second place for its ghee, pepper jack and dry jack. Sierra Nevada Cheese Company, a frequent sight in Capital Region supermarkets, won eight awards: three first place for its unaged goat cheese, goat yogurt and goat butter; three second place for its plain yogurt, non-fat goat yogurt and farmer cheese; and two third place for its organic jack cheese and goat feta.

Real California milk

Production Manager Matt Brown of Cowgirl Creamery and Production Manager Matt Groff of Cypress Groves co-led a Bloomy Rind Cheese education and tasting session. They guided attendees through a journey of taste broken down by stages (a kind of cheese life cycle), giving a primer on how bacteria cultures, molds and milk coax out the final flavors and texture of the cheese. Cheese such as the Humboldt Fog start out as a humble, creamy curd, they explain, letting tasters differentiate between cow milk curd and the punchier, tangier goat milk curd. Throughout the session, attendees submitted their feedback detecting notes of “mushroomy” and “citrusy” to “buttermilk” and “ammonia.”

“I have been attending the ACS over the past 19 years. After getting a good night’s sleep, I’m really excited for people to finally taste our cheeses,” says Scott Lafranchi of Nicasio Valley Cheese while serving samples of the Nicasio Square (which won first place in the Farmstead category), followed their Tomino, a soft-ripened cheese; and Foggy Morning, ranked third in the unripened cheese category.

While these North Coast creameries may be among California’s best-known cheesemakers, none took home quite as many awards as the Sacramento Valley’s own Sierra Nevada Cheese.

“So many hands go into making an award-winning cheese,” says Meghan Rodgers, Sierra Nevada’s sales and marketing manager. “We are not just selling a product; we are partnering with farmers and fostering a sense of pride because of that direct relationship. The dairy farmers put so much effort into producing milk, and then to see the finished product means a lot. And I know everyone will say this, but in Northern California, when we say we have the best milk, it really feels true. That’s what makes award-winning cheeses.”

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