Reverie

Producer

Parish Hill Creamery

Country

United States

Region

Vermont

Size

12 in diameter x 5 in height

Website

www.parishhillcreamery.com

Milk

Cow

Treatment

Raw

Classification

Firm

Rennet

Animal

Rind

Natural

Style

Alpine-style

After working 30 years as a cheesemaker and as a cheesemaking consultant, Peter Dixon opened his own creamery in 2013 in Westminster West, Vermont, along with his wife Rachel Fritz Schall and her sister Alex Schall.

Parish Hill’s cheeses are inspired by the traditional cheeses of Italy. They’re handmade in small batches using raw milk, which is produced at the Elm Lea Farm at the Putney School. The farm is just five minutes down the road from the cheese house, and its milking herd grazes on fresh pasture from June to October. Parish Hill cheese production happens from May to November in order to take advantage of the pastures that give a highly aromatic quality to the milk, resulting in complex and subtle flavor variations.

Milk for cheesemaking is ripened using homegrown cheese cultures, which are produced by inoculating the farm’s raw milk with pure bacterial strains and then propagating them continuously. Traditional calf rennet is sourced from Europe and Quebec, and sea salt is sourced from the Maine Sea Salt Company in Marshfield.

Reverie is modeled after a traditional tomme cheese. Wild mold growth is encouraged during 5 to 10 months of aging, resulting in a rind that resembles gray stone. 

Tasting Notes

Smell is slightly sweet, while texture is semi firm and pliable, toothsome and somewhat crumbly in the mouth. Initial notes of milk and pepper give way to a buttery finish and a earthy, mushroomy aftertaste. 

Pairings

Pair Reverie with a Barbaresco, a Barolo, a Pinot Grigio, a Belgian amber or a hoppy IPA.