Meet the Makers Quarterly Cheese Subscription

We've curated a quarterly cheese subscription, so you can continue to be delighted year-round with unique, and interesting American artisan cheeses. Each quarter, we will highlight a different American cheesemaker, complete with digital literature on tasting, serving, pairing and storing your cheeses. You will also receive a Zoom link along with each shipment inviting you to meet the Cheesemaker. Our mission is to educate as well as provide a selection of delicious cheeses that are perfectly stored in your Grotto for weeks and months so you will always have just the right selection to share and enjoy with good company.

The quarterly cheese selection fits best in a Grotto Classico or Grotto Fresco.

• Bloomy Rind, Washed Rind, Natural Rind, Waxed Rind, Blue, Smoked, Herbed, Spiced, Cow Cheese, Sheep Cheese, Goat Cheese

• The subscription includes two to four cheeses (approximately 1.5 to 2 pounds total, depending on the price of the cheese featured) per shipment. The cheeses shipped are selected at optimal ripeness best enjoyed within 2 to 3 weeks of delivery.

• One healthy serving of cheese is anywhere from 2 to 4 ounces, depending on your appetite. This package is great for 8 to 16 servings over weeks of enjoyment.

• With each quarterly shipment, you will receive digital literature with information on the cheeses, as well as an email invite to a live Zoom session with the Cheesemaker.

American Cheese Society Winner

Nestled in a cove on the floor of the picturesque Sequatchie Valley, Sequatchie Cove Creamery produces farmstead cheese using time-honored European traditions with a distinctly Southern flair. Their cheeses are made using the raw milk from cows who spend every waking moment on grass, letting the expression of the land shine through in its flavors. Fresh forage, sunlight, Tennessee mountain air, a good bit of science, and a dash of artistry are the tools they rely on daily.

Grey Barn Farm is a small, diversified New England family farm based in Martha's Vineyard. Their cheeses are critically acclaimed and exceptionally unique.

Owned and operated by the Cook family, Carr Valley Cheese Company is over one-hundred years old. Nestled amongst the rolling hills and lush pastures of central Wisconsin, they remain one of Wisconsin's traditional cheese plants, famous for making cheese the old-fashioned way!

Carr Valley Cheese has won numerous awards over the years and continues to offer delicious and unique Wisconsin Cheeses.

When Point Reyes Farmstead Cheese Company was founded in 2000, they already had the most important part. Their dairy farm has always been known for making the freshest, highest quality milk. Their family’s herd of Holsteins were all raised from birth right on the property, giving them complete quality control from start to finish. Their first creamery was, and still is, right next to the milking parlor. In 2018, to fulfill the increasing demand for our award-winning products, they proudly opened a second production facility in the nearby town of Petaluma.

Today Original Blue, their raw milk cheese, continues to be made on the farm in Point Reyes, exclusively from the milk of our own Holsteins. Their pasteurized cheeses, Toma, Bay Blue, Gouda and Quinta, are handcrafted in Petaluma, where they source milk from CA dairies who share in their sustainable farming philosophies and match their highest standards for milk quality.

Long ago, cheesemaker Nathan Arnold of Sequatchie Cove Creamery learned the secrets of the Reblochon style in France, and brought his Savoie training home to Tennessee. A new style was born, and became the famous Dancing Fern (6x ACS Winner, Good Food Awards Winner). But that journey led to a new perfectly sized variation on a classic well-balanced wheel. We named it after Walden Ridge, a place where you can get a thrilling view of the Tennessee river winding far below. 

The name Walden might best be known from Thoreau’s quest for self-knowledge and simplicity on Walden Pond. Maybe that fits because this cheese is laid back and all set for a picnic. Follow the breeze to a ledge, and you can watch the silky clouds billow over all the nooks and coves of the Valley. Around here, just spreading the right cheese on a baguette might take you to some faraway place where everything makes total sense for a minute.

Back in the day, and we mean the middle ages, cheesemakers first started using ash in their recipes. They had their reasons, and so does Sequatchie Cove Creamery. Ever since people first began to combine food and fire, they’ve used ashes to preserve and purify things. Sometimes it’s called vegetable ash or activated charcoal. Some say it’s vegan fairy dust. This cheese works in the tradition of ash-lined styles like Morbier, but it comes from Coppinger Cove.

The ash line doesn’t change the way Coppinger tastes, but it does give it some extra style. It reminds the cheesemakers of the Little Sequatchie River running through the valley, dotted with rapids and swimming holes all the way past the Creamery. That’s where they'll be, sprinkling a fine layer of bling between the two halves of this prize curd while it’s still in the mold. It just means Coppinger was born looking good.

Ebenezer is Sequatchie Cove Creamery's special holiday release that is only available during the holidays. A supple washed-rind wheel hand-wrapped in spruce bark to hold its shape, the flavors range from pine, to bacon, to egg custard.

They say the ancient Greeks wrapped their favorite foods in flavorful leaves to preserve them and to make them even more delicious. This cheese comes from a leafy place, so when Sequatchie Cover Creamery had this idea, their friends and family raided their gardens and yards for the choicest fig leaves and brought them to their stand at the farmer’s market. That’s when Shakerag really came to life. 

From there, adding Tennessee liquor seemed natural. That’s why this cheese takes its name from Shakerag Hollow, a place known for moonshining mischief and a bonanza of spring wildflowers. Shakerag is complicated and over-the-top in all the best ways. Basically, this cheese is down to party. They steep those luscious fig leaves in Chattanooga Whiskey, and hand-wrap each wheel of Shakerag Blue. That’s probably why it seems so confident.

Live Zoom session will take place on Thursday, December 14th at 6pmEST

Your December cheese kit will ship December 11th, and we'll email you an invitation to Meet the Cheesemaker live on Zoom. A recording will be emailed for those who cannot attend.

Once upon a time, an artist and a horticulturalist fell in love and started making cheese in the place with the most caves on the continent. Since 2010 Nathan and Padgett Arnold have used time-tested methods to conjure the terroir of the Sequatchie Valley, collaborating with cute cows and the living landscape to make cheeses worth sharing. 

On their journey of discovery, they’ve developed expressive cheese styles inspired by the Sequatchie Valley and the Cumberland Plateau. It all started with a few Devonshire cows and a lot of courage. Through more than a decade of trial and error, the evolving farmstead herd taught them the secrets of a unique land. This holistic approach to growing plants and raising cows turned sun, grass and milk into delicious cheeses that have been ACS award winners 7 times and counting.

That deep foundation led the Creamery to embrace milk sources from around this bountiful region, and each variety is of course named in honor of the place that still makes it all possible.

Meet Padgett Arnold on Zoom on Thursday, December 14th at 6pmEST! An email recording will be sent for those who cannot attend!

• Once signed up, you can easily manage your subscription frequency and contents via our amazing portal. You can also always email us at info@cheesegrotto.com if you need help and we'll respond within 3 business days.

• This is a Recurring Subscription that will continue unless otherwise canceled.

• Your card will be charged the Thursday before the order is shipped.

• Option to pause, skip, or cancel any time.

• Your recurring shipping charge per order is based on your zip code location.

• Our Meet the Maker Subscription ships on a fixed yearly schedule.  This allows everyone to meet the cheesemaker at the same time on Zoom while enjoying their cheeses!

1. December 11th, 2023

2. March 11th, 2024

3. July 11th, 2024

4. November 18th, 2024

• Please visit our shipping policy page for additional questions.

Please fill in your allergies so we can be sure to sub a cheese if needed.

We got you! Download this gift card and share with the lucky gift recipient! The size of the card is 5.5 inches by 4.5 inches so it can be formatted on a full-sized printer paper, or can be formatted to print double-sided!

Artisan Cheese - According to the American Cheese Society, "artisan or artisanal implies that a cheese is produced primarily by hand, in small batches, with particular attention paid to the tradition of the cheesemaker’s art, and thus using as little mechanization as possible in the production of the cheese."

Over the past decade, the American Artisan cheese industry has been recognized internationally for its quality and integrity. Small to medium-scale artisan cheesemakers have a core set of values - high-quality milk makes incredible cheese, and high quality land and animal management makes for incredible milk. In our current industrial agriculture system, committing to these core values requires long hours of hard work and an acute attention to detail.

This subscription directly supports American Artisan Cheesemakers, and the continual diversification of our food system.