In Ecuador, a growing taste for maduro (aged) cheese expands opportunity for farmers and food tourists
By Laurel Miller

Upon my arrival at Hacienda Zuleta in Northern Ecuador, Fito, by way of greeting, takes my hand and leads me to my room. I am delighted, rather than taken aback by his brashness, despite the fact that my palm is left damp. Fito, you see, is the farm dog, a puppyish, brindled Great Dane-Golden Retriever mix. But even without Fito's attendance, I would still have been immediately charmed by this hacienda with its vast cobblestone plaza, its long, whitewashed adobe buildings trimmed with cobalt blue, and the hundreds of flowering geraniums lining porches, walls, and walkways. Zuleta is a living postcard of preserved Colonial architecture. And beyond its walls are steep Andean valleys lush with temperate cloud forest rising up from emerald pastures dotted with grazing cows and horses. It is as though I have arrived in a Happy Place of my own design . . . complete with cheesemaking.

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