Pipe Dreams Demi. Photo: Max Shrem.

While affinage -- the process of aging cheeses -- is common in Parisian cheese shops, it's a striking novelty here in the U.S. So it makes sense that cheese shops like Artisanal and Murray's would reach out to our French cousins, fromageries like Alléosse, to perfect this age-old craft. Recently, we discovered beautifully aged cheeses, notably Pearl and Pipe Dreams Demi, from Saxelby Cheesemongers on the Lower East Side of Manhattan.

Like Voltaire, the 18th-century French philosopher who compared the intellectual work of assembling the Encyclopédie to cultivating a garden, Anne Saxelby also compares affinage to tending a garden: "I check up on them [the aging goat's milk cheeses] every half hour, moving stuff around and turning the cheeses," says Saxelby, who has been aging cheeses now for about two years.

We decided to try an un-aged Pipe Dreams Demi next to one that's been aged a week and a half to taste the difference (visually, they're extremely apparent – see the photo above). Upon cutting into the younger one (on the left), the paste tends to run from under the beautifully developed bloomy rind. The taste was surprisingly pungent and aggressively remained on the palate for several minutes. On the contrary, the aged Pipe Dreams Demi seemed like an ideal redistribution of the younger one's tanginess. The spicy taste, reminiscent of walnuts and similar to an aged Pouligny Saint Pierre, came in nearly perfectly measured successions.

So how exactly does she transform these milky young wheels of cheese into tantalizing morsels of cheese with brilliant rinds covered in different-colored molds? Affinage demands a specific environment for the cheese to flourish. "We set up a walk-in fridge with higher humidity than an ordinary walk-in and with more evaporator coils, which means more moisture," explains Saxelby. From the first day wheels of Pearl and the Pipe Dreams Demi arrive (just a couple of days old), Saxelby follows a specific procedure that appears to have become instinctual for her, somewhat of a cheese ritual.

An essential part of affinage consists of drying the cheese in a way that allows the flavor to blossom. The young ones arrive wet, creamy and sticky. "I turn these ones more because they stick to the straw mats," says Saxelby. "They spend the first 24 hours drying out on straw mats in wooden boxes, below the fan of the walk-in." After six to eight weeks, they develop an array of bluish greenish molds. And, obviously, when it comes to the Pipe Dreams Demi, it takes not more than two weeks (see the cheese on the right).

At Saxelby Cheesemongers, affinage is like delicately "raising" cheeses, as though they were children, to be the best representatives of their taste profile. Both Pearl and the Pipe Dreams Demi have complex flavor profiles that reflect fondly upon their affineur, Anne Saxelby. They can be purchased at Saxelby Cheesemongers, located in the Essex Street Market, in Manhattan.