POINT REYES STATION, Calif. — Sue Conley and Peggy Smith were exasperated. The proprietors of the Cowgirl Creamery here couldn't get their signature Mt. Tam mold-ripened, triple-cream cheese to turn out right.
An unexpected mold had become anchored in the batch. No matter how many times they brushed it away, it kept coming back. So they decided to wash the unripened lot with brine to encourage the rogue mold and waited a month to see what would happen. The result was Red Hawk, a washed-rind cheese that commands nearly $20 a pound.
Named after a raptor that circles the skies above this hamlet near Tomales Bay, the accidental cheese won best in show out of 616 entries at the American Cheese Society's Annual Conference last year. Happily in the cheese business, "you can start out trying to make one type," Conley said, "but given your milk and your environment you get something else."
Milk and environment have produced a lot of big cheeses for California. Red Hawk was just one of 11 California offerings awarded first-place medals at the nation's most important cheese competition.
They spotlighted the growing importance of specialty and artisanal products to the state's $8-billion industry, which churns out 1.8 billion pounds of mozzarella, Cheddar, Jack and hundreds of other varieties every year.
Artisanal and farmstead cheeses -- handcrafted in relatively small batches by cheese makers who do their work on or near dairy farms -- are increasingly in vogue. Blue cheese from Point Reyes Farmstead Cheese Co., Gouda-style wheels produced by Pedrozo Dairy & Cheese Co. in Orland and bandage-wrapped Cheddar from Fiscalini Cheese Co. in Modesto are giving California a good name for cheese.
"It is like wine was two decades ago when California started winning the competitions in France," said Christopher Blobaum, executive chef at Splashes restaurant at the Surf & Sand Resort in Laguna Beach.
"The cheeses from Cowgirl are like the cult Cabernets," Blobaum said. "We are on allocation and we can't get enough."
Cheese isn't new to the state. In fact, Monterey Jack was invented here in 1882 by a banker named David Jacks. Four of the world's 10 largest cheese factories are located in the state, which next year is expected to surpass Wisconsin as the nation's largest manufacturer of cheese.
