A Shenandoah Valley dairy farm is selling small-batch cheeses as fast as it can handcraft them.

By Dawn Medley · Photos By Norm Shafer

EIGHTEEN COWS CLOMP THROUGH a pair of double doors toward their usual spots in the milking parlor at Mountain View Farm in Rockbridge County. They are not harnessed in position around the side-by-side milking machine, but these gals know the drill—getting milked twice a day, every day, will do that. On this afternoon shift, they patiently f lick their tails and lick their noses while eyeballing Jed, the farm’s young border collie. Jed, in turn, keeps a keen eye trained on boss Fred Huger, who oversees a farmhand as he neatly dips each teat into sterilizing solution and primes it by hand to elicit a few creamy drops before attaching the automatic pump.

Depending on how you look at it, this is the beginning of the creation of Mountain View’s farmstead cheeses, an artisan assortment that is impressing Virginia cheese lovers and cheesemongers alike. Or maybe that genesis actually occurs in the surrounding countryside, where nearly 200 dairy cows are out on pasture year-round, lending their milk, and therefore the cheese, subtle seasonal variations.

“This one’s a little stubborn,” Huger says, patting a black-and-white Holstein-Jersey mix. “She came to us from another farm, where she was treated more like a pet. And that lightbrown one there, it’s been a while since she’s calved, so her milk supply is getting low.”

After a few minutes, some pumps release, sensing a decrease in the milk flow and sparing the animals from being pumped dry. Soon, this first group ambles back out single file to graze on juicy spring grass or bed down in the open-air barn until daybreak, when their milking cycle will begin anew.

Most of the raw milk from this session will be picked up by a tanker and sold to a co-op that processes and distributes it in Maryland and Virginia. But about 150 gallons has a more immediate destination. At 6 a.m. every morning, a farmhand guides milk into five-gallon containers, three dozen of which he transports in a skid loader to an unassuming white trailer, where the craft—and art—of farmstead cheese begins.

Inside the trailer, Huger’s wife Christie is working with a batch of what will become McClure, a mild Swiss-style cheese, which unlike the traditional version, is smaller and not aged for as long. The raw milk has already been inoculated with a powdery bacteria culture and liquid rennet, which curdles the milk, thus separating the curd (milk protein) from the watery whey. The result is a gelatinous mass, through which Christie skillfully drags a long metal harp called a curd cutter. Cheesemaking, it turns out, is fundamentally about getting the whey out of the way.

Christie positions her hair net and scrubs down like a surgeon. Her arm plunges deep into the 150-gallon vat to hold a mesh screen over an opening at the bottom, keeping the curd in the vat while the whey flows into an outdoor tank. She directs warm water back into the vat through a PVC pipe; this is the first of two washings of the curd.

After rinsing the residue from her arm and hands, Christie leaves an assistant to row the vat—agitating the curd to expel more whey—but not before setting a small kitchen timer for 20 minutes to mark when the second washing will begin.

From left: Fred, Isabelle, Anderson, Everette, and Christie Huger (with dog Jed).

She jots some notes on a log sheet. “I record everything so that if a new flavor emerges or something is off with a batch, I can look back to see what was different,” she explains. Despite this great attention to detail, and the technical requirements of what she does, Christie maintains that “cheesemaking is like art. It’s just another way I can express myself through what I create. When we’re out there selling the cheese and getting feedback, it’s like having my artwork on display.”

She should know. She was once a calligrapher and stained-glass artist, and even taught middle school art. At the same time, Fred was raising a small herd of beef cattle and working as a hired hand at nearby dairies and farms to make ends meet. In 2000, Fred ran into Bud Martin, then-owner of Mountain View, at an animal hospital. Martin mentioned he was ready to get out of dairy farming, and Fred replied—half joking— that the couple would take over milking when he was ready to leave.

Less than a year later, the Hugers, who had been high-school sweethearts, were renting Mountain View and running the day-today operations, including the beef herd. Their eldest child, Anderson, was a toddler, and over the next five years, they added Everette and Isabelle, making them a genuine farm family. Except that the farm didn’t really belong to them. They had long assumed that Mountain View eventually would go to one of Martin’s children, so they started researching farms in Kentucky, where land prices were lower. But in 2009, Martin offered the property to the Hugers, and they took the leap. (They designated 200 acres as a conservation easement, and now have the peace of mind that the area will be preserved as farmland instead of being developed.)

Because milk prices can fluctuate wildly, Christie began tinkering with other dairy products in an effort to bring stability to their bottom line. First, she made homemade butter for her family. Then she dabbled in a few soft cheeses, which are typically easier for beginners. Attending a cheesemaking workshop in 2003 convinced her that there was a local market for farmstead cheese, and she started visiting auctions and out-of-business restaurants to buy sinks, tables, and other supplies on the cheap. Aged, hard-rind cheeses brought in the first funds. As her repertoire grew (and she added a pasteurizer), it wasn’t long before cheese sales were surpassing beef sales.

A knock on the door momentarily interrupts Christie’s labors. Her day is punctuated by such visits—delivery people and customers stopping by to drop off supplies or collect their next batch of cheese.

She greets Mark Lilly, co-owner of the Richmond- based CSA Farm to Family, and helps fill his insulated boxes with cheese, butter, fruity “Moo-gurt,” and Meow Milk (the farm does not have a Grade-A processing facility to produce milk for human consumption, but it does have a special license to make pasteurized whole milk as a treat for cats).

The variety of products is impressive, made possible with the help of area farmers whose herbs and fruits are used to flavor some of the cheeses and yogurts. These farmers are the same ones with whom the Hugers trade for most of the food they put on the table, making their meals almost completely locally sourced.

“Where farmers need to be and want to be is on the farm,” Lilly says, “so we come to them. Distribution is key.” True enough. If not for people like Lilly, the Hugers would spend hours—maybe days—on the road to get their products around the state and beyond, leaving no time to tend to the cows or to make cheese.

It may be this focus that makes Mountain View cheeses so delectable. Indeed, from the best-selling McClure to the cheddar-like Marmac (see “Cheese Menu,” page 36), the Hugers’ products are in demand at some of the most well-regarded restaurants and specialty grocers in the region, an expansion that has flourished mostly by word of mouth.

Dave Kostelnik, general manager of Charlottesville’s gourmet food shop Feast, for one, is a fan. “Swiss can sometimes be bitter, but the raw milk gives McClure a depth and a mildness that is very appealing,” he says, having featured it often on the shop’s café menu, including in an all-local panini with Albemarle Baking Company focaccia, Edwards ham slices, and a peppermustard sauce from MeadowCroft Farm in Swoope. “I just love small-batch cheeses because the flavor changes a little from season to season. You can taste the care that went into them.”

As Lilly drives back toward the main road, his truck full, he offers a parting wave to Fred, who is surveying the 1,500-square-foot structure being built next to the current milking parlor. This expansion will house cheesemaking facilities and a few offices when it is completed this spring. In the new setup, milk will be pumped directly from the parlor into a 580- gallon vat, eliminating the need to ferry buckets. Christie will have almost 10 times the amount of space she now has for crafting cheese, plus more sophisticated equipment. These updates will help her produce nearly 60 wheels in about the same time that it now takes her to make 15.

With this new phase for the farm within sight, the couple is energized and grateful. But today, there is still cheese to be finished. Christie mounds the semi-solid chunks of nascent cheese into round molds, pressing firmly on the lids until the last of the whey drips out. She hoists the molds onto a metal table, stacking them two or three high, then positions a lever arm press on top of each stack, weighing it down with a hanging water jug. The cheeses will stay in this low-tech wall press overnight. Come morning, Christie will remove them from the molds and begin a two-day brining process that will help to form a thin, hard rind.

The wheels of McClure spend a few more days drying on open shelves in the trailer. After being painted with a cream wax to inhibit mold growth, they join hundreds of other wheels of hard cheese and bins of floating feta in a “cheese cave” walk-in cooler, where they will age for between 60 and 90 days (the former being the minimum required by the FDA for raw-milk cheeses, in order to kill potentially harmful bacteria). Ideally, Christie says, she’d age them for about four months, but most of the wheels leave the farm early due to demand.

Standing at the door to the cheese cave, Christie scans the yellow and orange rounds of Gouda-, Swiss-, and cheddar-style cheeses that line the wooden shelves from floor to ceiling, and can’t help but marvel at how much her life has changed. “These are symbolic of all of our hard work and how far we’ve come as a family since we started farming,” she says, pointing to her personal favorite, the McClure. “It’s very satisfying to see all of that hard work turned into something that looks and tastes so good.”

MOUNTAIN VIEW FARM’S RICOTTA CHEESECAKE PIE

Pie dough (enough for a single-crust pie)

1 pound fresh ricotta

½ cup heavy cream

½ cup sugar

2 whole eggs, plus

1 yolk Dash each of lemon and orange rinds

1. Preheat oven to 375º. Lay pie dough in pie dish. Cover pie crust with parchment paper or aluminum foil and pour in dry beans (any type will do). Bake for about 30 minutes, or until pale golden.

2. Meanwhile, beat next 5 ingredients together until smooth. Pour into prepared pie crust, and bake 30 to 35 minutes, or until golden on top.

CHEESE MENU

Mountain View Farm’s dairy products include Moo-gurt (yogurt), Meow milk (a treat for cats), salted and unsalted butter, and of course, farmstead soft and hard cheeses—including ones flavored with sun-dried tomatoes, green peppercorns, or cranberries. Here, a few of the most popular cheese varieties.

LUSK A sweet, fruity, washed-curd Gouda-style cheese that pairs well with white wines; named for Lusk Hill, which is visible from the farm.

McCLURE Buttery, sweet, and mildly nutty, this Swiss is named for former owners of the farm. MARMAC Cheddar cheese that is mild and smooth when young and ages to a slightly crumbly texture with a sharper bite; sometimes flavored with horseradish, cranberry, or chipotle pepper. The name is a combination of the previous owners, Martin and McClure.

JUMPIN’ JACK CHIVE Chives, parsley, onion, and garlic mixed into a buttery Jack cheese.

WHERE TO BUY MOUNTAIN VIEW CHEESES

Augusta County: Barren Ridge Vineyards, Cranberry’s Grocery, Staunton Farmers’ Market, Stone Soup Books.

Charlottesville area: Anderson Carriage Food House, C’ville Market, Feast, Foods of All Nations, Greenwood Gourmet Grocery, Rebecca’s Natural Foods, Relay Foods.

Madison County: Ducard Vineyard. Nelson County: Nellysford Farmers’ Market, Saunders Brothers.

Rockbridge County: Donald’s Meat Processing, Farm to You, Healthy Foods Co-op, Lexington Farmers’ Market, Rockbridge Vineyards, Virginia Born & Bred, Wade’s Mill.

Rockingham County: A Bowl of Good, Bluestone Vineyard, CrossKeys Vineyard, Downtown Wine and Gourmet, Harrisonburg Farmers’ Market.