Champlain Valley Triple Cream - Cheese Course

by Max Shrem, Posted Feb 16th 2010 @ 5:00PM

Photo: Champlain Valley Creamery

Those who associate triple crème cheeses with a dense mousse-like texture and a uniform pristine white bloomy rind will be intrigued and surprised when they try the firmer crottin-size triple crème from Champlain Valley Creamery in Vergennes, Vt. This unconventional triple crème seems to fuse the texture of two entirely different types of cheese: the firmness of a well-aged chèvre, like Pouligny Saint Pierre, and the creaminess of a bloomy rind, like Brillat-Savarin. The result is a cheese with a more interesting flavor profile ranging from milky and sweet to earthy.

After speaking to Carleton Yoder, owner of Champlain Valley Creamery, we found out that this texture has a lot to do with its smaller size – that is, for a triple crème. While most, like Pierre Robert, weigh over 17 ounces, Champlain Valley Triple Cream weighs just about four ounces and is just a little bigger than a French Crottin de Chavignol. The smaller the cheese, the more quickly it loses its moisture. "The cheese is pretty young, about 12 days old, when sold, and is somewhat firm at that age," says Yoder. "It does soften over the next few weeks." Although it's firmer than the average triple crème, it's by no means as firm as an Alpine cheese, like Gruyère. In fact, on the palate, it's definitely as rich and creamy as any other triple crème.

Besides Champlain Valley Triple Cream's obvious texture difference, it also has an earthiness that's unusual for a cheese of thi kind. "I describe the earthiness as mushroom-like, which I've always attributed to the rind," says Yoder. "We use a combo of Penicillum and Geotrichum molds in the rind which I feel contribute some complexity." Those mold spores are added to the milk and cream at the same time as the cheese cultures (bacteria used for cheese production). Of course, the taste of the rind also affects the flavor of the cheese's interior. "The rind grows from the outside and works its way inside as it ripens," says Yoder.

Ironically, Yoder didn't initially intend to make triple crème cheeses. In 2003, he started producing delicious handmade cream cheese from organic milk from Journey's Hope Farm, a neighboring dairy. "I can't say I was a huge fan of triple crèmes before I started making this cheese, and I never liked the sizes of the Euro versions like Brillat-Savarin," says Yoder. "The size of this cheese is perfect for a cheese tray or sharing with a few people."

So, then, how did he conceive of Champlain Valley Triple Cream? "Near the end of 2005, I had a few crottin molds, six of them I think, and I started ladling the curd into them and took the finished cheeses to a holiday farmers market and they sold really quickly." He now makes 350 pieces per batch, sometimes up to four times per week.

Including Yoder's "mushroomy" triple crème, there are currently several other American smaller-wheel renditions of the classic French triple crème, including Cowgirl Creamery's Mt Tam and Nettle Meadow Farm's Kunik. And, while they all have distinct tastes, none come in the same chèvre-size format, or have the identical type of texture and earthy taste.

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Tags: champlain valley creamery, champlain valley triple cream, cheese, CheeseCourse