We believe the best cheeses are made with attention to detail and high quality milk sources.
At Reverie, we care passionately about the cheese making process and work hard to ensure our cheeses are the best they can be. This starts at the source: we are dedicated to using milk from small scale, local, and responsible dairies. Our choice in dairies is not only because milk quality is a crucial part of the flavor of our cheese but also because we want to support local businesses, sustainable practices, and the humane treatment of animals.
Milk source is critical to making artisan cheese which is made by hand in limited quantities and using traditional methods with great attention to detail. To achieve unique tastes and quality characteristics in our cheese, our milk is sourced from farmers who can assure healthy herds. We insist practice of local forage and quality feeding of the herds, since this affects the taste of the milk.
Unfortunately, due to sanitary, hygiene and food safety considerations we cannot offer tours of our production area. Inside of the store, we can try to answer all your cheesemaking questions & share as much of our process as possible. And of course, we have samples of all the cheese we make!
Cardot Farm
Reverie Creamery is currently receiving high quality milk from Cardot Farm, Kennedy in Chautauqua County, NY. Cardot Farm has been practicing organic farming with path to be certified organic dairy farm. Their small herd consists of predominantly Jersey cow breed, ensuring high protein and butterfat content, resulting is tastier cheese. Cardot Farm practices pasture based feeding.
Wanderer
Wanderer. Alpine washed with local Porter made by Southern Tier Brewing Company. Lightly pasteurized & aged 6 months. Slight maltiness, earthy and cavey aroma. Salted caramel, hazelnut, meaty, and buttery.
Tom
Tomme Style. Winner of NYS 2016 Best Artisan Hard Cheese. Lightly pasteurized & aged for 3 months. This young cheese is fruity, reminiscent of stone fruits, yogurt tang, with a slight finish of candied nuts and sea salt.
Chamomilla
Hybrid of Tomme & Alpine style, lightly pasteurized, aged 3-4 months. Strong & sweet with bright buttery notes & floral tones.
Palomino
Hybrid of Alpine and Tomme style, Aged roughly a year. Sweet Butter Notes with a cheddar-like finish.
Luna
Soft Ripened, aged 3-4 weeks, grass fed milk. Notes of sweet cream, hints of sourdough tang, thin edible rind, soft and creamy. A petit brie with personality.
Our Cheesemaking Process
We start every batch of cheese by ensuring the milk is of the highest quality. Once that’s settled, we can begin. We make several of hard cheeses currently and they are all pasteurized cheeses (with the exception of our Gitane). We very lightly pasteurized them to ensure their quality while retaining the natural flavors of our amazing milk. We also use vegetable rennet making all our cheeses vegetarian. With hard cheeses, we form it into wheels then we press the curds to remove more whey. After pressing, the cheeses are brined and then they are are aged for 3- 6 months (depending the type) in our custom aging rooms on spruce boards. We also make fresh cheese, soft ripened cheese. They are formed in multimould blocks. After salting, the drying process takes 1-2 days before they are moved to aging room specifically designated for Soft Ripened cheese which aging time could range from 2-4 weeks. The soft ripened cheese are also called bloomy rind cheese, characterized with white mould like the brie.
Be sure to try them when you stop by!