For some of Tess McNamara’s first cheese-scouting trips, she remembers zipping around the Italian Alps somewhat precariously on the back of a motorcycle. “It was actually pretty scary,” she says. McNamara had just graduated from a food master’s program in Bra, Italy, where she fell in love with cheese while working for Fiorenzo Giolito, a third-generation cheesemonger.
McNamara is now head of salumi and formaggi (cured meats and cheeses) for the Italian gourmet grocer Eataly, a role for which she sources and trains staff on the 350 to 500 cheeses sold in stores throughout the year.
When she’s not at her home base in New York City or visiting Eataly locations in five other U.S. cities, you’ll find McNamara and her wife, Hillary Sterling – who’s the executive chef of Ci Siamo, a new Italian restaurant in Manhattan – driving to the countryside in their Forester. These trips do double duty: In between hiking, biking, kayaking, and picnicking, McNamara and Sterling can scout creameries for exciting new cheeses.
“We know our careers are in New York, but we really seek nature and need an escape and a place to decompress,” says McNamara. They even named their Forester “Lago,” or lake in Italian.
Replicate some of McNamara’s favorite road trips – or a few on her wish list – by driving to any of these seven American creameries, each offering exceptional cheeses, idyllic scenery and nearby pit stops ranging from tide-pool marvels to architectural tours.
Cowgirl Creamery & Point Reyes Farmstead Cheese Co. | Point Reyes, California
“The Tomales Bay area is an awesome place to road trip,” says McNamara, who stops at Cowgirl Creamery anytime she’s heading up the North Coast of California. The Cowgirl Creamery Barn Shop & Cantina is set in a historic hay barn in Point Reyes Station, where guests can pick up local wine, beer, specialty foods, and the full range of Cowgirl’s cheeses, including organic triple-cream Mt. Tam and seasonal bloomy rind wheels.
Close to 10 minutes north is Point Reyes Farmstead Cheese Co., famous for their blue cheeses and set on “beautiful, green rolling pastures,” McNamara says. Visitors can book a 90-minute cheese tasting (starting at $35).
To fully experience Point Reyes, hike, tread lightly in tidal pools or kayak in Point Reyes National Seashore, a series of beaches under the purview of the National Park Service. Finish the day with to-go oysters and condiments from The Hog Shack at the Hog Island Oyster Farm in nearby Marshall, California.
For some of our favorite road trip stories – including visiting every national park unit in the U.S. – check out “Bucket List Road Trips.”
Churchtown Dairy | Hudson, New York
Churchtown Dairy is about a 45-minute drive south from New York’s capital city, Albany. At the 250-acre biodynamic farm and educational center, guests can stroll through medicinal gardens, whose plants are used in homeopathic remedies; shop for milk, beef, pork, cheeses, local products and more in the farm store; and learn about cheese and organic agriculture.
The milking parlor is open for viewing every day at 6:30 a.m. and 4 p.m., and complimentary farm tours are offered on Saturdays at 3:30 p.m., where guests can watch cheesemaker Matt Spiegler make fresh soft cheese resembling cream cheese; a semihard Tomme; and an aged Camembert-style cheese named after Peggy Rockefeller, who purchased the land before it was handed down to her daughter and current owner, Abby Rockefeller.
In downtown Hudson nearby, McNamara always stops at Talbott & Arding for executive chef Mona Talbott’s salads, sandwiches and pastries, along with cheesemonger Kate Arding’s curated selection of small-production American cheeses.
The Grey Barn and Farm | Chilmark, Massachusetts
“The Grey Barn is high on my list of creameries I want to visit,” says McNamara. Located about 20 minutes from the ferry docks on Martha’s Vineyard, the creamery is part of an over 75-acre certified organic farm with pigs, sheep, cows and laying hens. Milk from the farm’s herd of cows is used to produce six certified organic cheeses. There’s an onsite bakery, farm store and art gallery too.
“Fresh, warm bread is one of the ultimate sidecars to cheese,” McNamara says. Don’t miss the rich, earthy Bluebird blue cheese or the award-winning Prufrock, reminiscent of French Reblochon and Italian Taleggio and “one of the best stinky schmear cheeses you can get,” says McNamara. “Anytime I can share great cheese and be near water, I’m in. These are two of my most favorite things.”
The farm offers public tours ($10/person) on Mondays and Fridays, and private groups of up to eight can book tours with cheese tastings ($250/1.5 hour or $400/2.5 hour).
Rogue Creamery Dairy and Farm Stand | Grants Pass, Oregon
On the day of the fall equinox each year, Rogue Creamery® releases its Rogue River Blue cheese, winner of the World Champion Cheese title at the 2019-20 World Cheese Awards in Bergamo, Italy. Wrapped in syrah grape leaves and soaked in pear brandy, it’s one of the few American cheeses that’s coveted abroad, McNamara says.
Free farm tours take place Wednesday through Sunday at 10 a.m. and 2 p.m. Guests get to visit a state-of-the-art barn known as the “Cow Palace,” watch robotic milkers and meet some of the herd (just no petting, please).
The Farm Stand sells a variety of delicious Rogue Creamery cheeses, grilled cheese sandwiches and more, and there are shaded picnic tables for lunch and DIY cheese boards. Don’t miss the scenic drive along the creamery’s namesake Rogue River or the creamery’s production facility about 30 minutes east in Central Point, Oregon.
Sugar House Creamery | Upper Jay, New York
Set in the Adirondack Mountains, Sugar House Creamery is home to farmers Alex Eaton and Margot Brooks and their 12 Brown Swiss cows. Cheesemaker Casey Galligan creates three cheeses: Comté-esque Dutch Knuckle, made from raw milk; Poundcake, a washed-rind stinky cheese; and Little Dickens brie, which McNamara describes as “like biting into a cloud.”
Day visitors can buy provisions at the self-serve farm store – open Wednesday, Saturday and Sunday from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. – unfurl a picnic lunch at one of several on-site tables, and then dash off to an Adirondack hiking, paddling, biking or car-cruising adventure; the Jay Mountain trailhead is about a 10-minute drive away.
For overnight stays, book the creamery’s onsite Airbnb to wake up to mooing cows and mountain views.
Sweetgrass Dairy | Thomasville, Georgia
Sweetgrass Dairy’s offerings “are cheeses you want on the table at all times,” says McNamara. “You can melt them, put them on a sandwich or throw them into a dish.” She’s especially fond of the South Georgia producer’s camembert-style Green Hill and buttery, semisoft Thomasville Tomme. The latter is aged 60 to 90 days and reflects Thomasville’s terroir.
“It’s a rotational grazing farm, and you get all the flavors of the grass and field – everything the cows are eating,” says McNamara. Sweetgrass has a cheese shop and restaurant in downtown Thomasville, where guests can order cheese boards with Southern-inflected accoutrements (à la peach-bourbon-cardamom preserves and roasted pecans) and burgers topped with Sweetgrass pimento cheese.
Eat lunch, browse Thomasville’s 100-plus local shops, and then tour the historic Lapham-Patterson House, a Victorian “cottage” built in 1885 during Thomasville’s heyday as a winter resort town.
Uplands Cheese | Dodgeville, Wisconsin
“Andy Hatch is an amazing pioneer of American cheese,” says McNamara of Uplands’ owner and cheesemaker. Hatch focuses on two European-style raw milk cheeses: Rush Creek Reserve that’s wrapped in spruce bark and reminds McNamara of oozy, hyper-seasonal Vacherin Mont d’Or from the Swiss Alps, and the Gruyere-inspired Pleasant Ridge Reserve created from grass-fed cow’s milk during the summer months.
There are no formal farm tours, but visitors can observe cheesemaking from May through October. Nearby, book a room at the kitschy Don Q Inn and explore Taliesin®, Frank Lloyd Wright’s 800-acre estate, along with House on the Rock, a kooky entertainment and architectural attraction.
