2009 ACS Best of Show Third Place Tie - Consider Bardwell
Every farmstead-cheese operation has a story to tell. The story of Consider Bardwell Farm, located in the rolling hills of Vermont’s Champlain Valley, starts with the current owners, Angela Miller and Russell Glover, discovering that the 300-acre farm they just purchased had once been the first cheesemaking cooperative in the state. So what did Miller and Glover do? They partnered with Peter Dixon, a cornerstone of the Vermont cheesemaking world, to develop a series of signature cheeses.
The rest, as they say, is history. Consider Bardwell now boasts a wall full of awards for its American originals, including a tie win for the American Cheese Society’s 2009 Third Place Best in Show for Rupert, an aged, raw Jersey cow’s milk cheese made in 25-pound wheels. Consider Bardwell also makes a full line of goat’s milk cheeses, including Manchester, an aged, raw-milk “peasant tome.” With the farm’s one hundred Oberhasli goats grazing rotationally year-round on well-kept pastures, combined with a unique aging process, each batch of Manchester has distinct flavors, and was named to Wine Spectator’s list of 100 Great Cheeses in 2008. “Between our absolute love of cheese and learning that our farm was the site of the first cheese factory in Vermont, we were inspired to reinvent Consider Bardwell’s cheesemaking farm,” says Miller. “We’ve had a lifelong passion for cheese. It was a natural fit.”
