One Year of Cheese: Meet The Makers Quarterly Cheese Subscription

We've curated a quarterly cheese subscription to delight you all year long with unique and fascinating American artisan cheeses. Each quarter, we'll highlight a different cheesemaker, complete with digital literature on tasting, serving, pairing, and storing your cheeses. You'll also receive a Zoom link with each shipment inviting you to a subscriber-only Meet the Cheesemaker event. It's our mission is to educate while curating delicious cheeses that can last for weeks in your Grotto. You'll always have the perfect selections on hand 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 and best enjoyed within 2 to 3 weeks of delivery.

• One 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. A recording will be emailed if you are not able to attend the live event.

Cowgirl Creamery makes cheese with heart. In 1997, they started with a dream shared between two college friends and business partners, Sue Conley and Peggy Smith: To celebrate organic practices and spotlight the craftsmanship of local sustainable agriculture in Marin and Sonoma counties. Today, they’re carrying the torch of the food revolution that started in our backyard. Organic. Farm-to-Table. Delicious, award-winning cheese. It’s in their DNA. And it defines their famous creations, including the beloved triple cream Mt Tam.

Scott and Andrea Robbins started Urban Stead Cheese as a way to create a great local product that had a sense of community. That’s why they create their cheese with milk from an Ohio Valley farmer. The leftover whey from cheesemaking is then used to feed another local farmer’s livestock. The cheese they make on site every morning is sold in their retail space, and at local restaurants and shops. Their cheddar recently won a Gold Medal at the 2024 ACS competition.

At Cato Corner Farm they make raw farmstead cheese by hand from the delicious milk of their 45 Jersey cows.  The cows are humanely raised on a pasture-based diet without growth hormones or subtherapeutic antibiotics.  They feed a small amount of grain to complement the nutrition in the grass and hay.  For the past ten years, they have bred their cows for A2:A2 milk production, and the majority of their herd produces the A2 milk that many people find easier to digest.

Their cheeses are their own unique recipes, based on traditional cheese making styles and highlighting the flavor and terroir of their pastures and their farm. Cato Corner Farm is owned and managed by the mother-son team of Elizabeth MacAlister and Mark Gillman in Colchester, CT.

We are still finalizing this box, but it will be fantastic!

November's Meet the Makers Quarterly Subscription Box is a filled to the brim with star California cheese that will shape your Thanksgiving cheese board. The best part? You get the chance to meet the cheesemaker live on Zoom!

Cowgirl Creamery makes cheese with heart. In 1997, they started with a dream shared between two college friends and business partners, Sue Conley and Peggy Smith: To celebrate organic practices and spotlight the craftsmanship of local sustainable agriculture in Sonoma counties. Today, they are carrying the torch of the food revolution that started in their backyard. Organic. Farm-to-Table. Delicious, award-winning cheese. It’s in their DNA. And it defines their famous creations, including the beloved triple cream Mt Tam.

Featuring four different cheeses, you'll receive a well-rounded spectrum of the Cowgirl experience for your Thanksgiving table: the classic triple cream brie Mt Tam, its funky, washed rind sister Red Hawk, the alpine-style semi-firm Wagon Wheel, and the snackable, cider-washed Hop Along. 

One of Cowgirl's esteemed cheesemakers will be joining us live to discuss their rich history and cheesemaking processes.

The live Zoom date and time is still TBD (November is far away!), though we know it will be the same week it ships. A Zoom link invitation will be emailed post-purchase and a recording will be emailed to everyone post-event.

Place your order by Sunday, November 15th.  The November box will ship Tuesday, November 17th.

*A Zoom invitation link will be emailed post-purchase and a recording will be emailed to everyone in case you aren't able to make the live event.

Cowgirl Creamery makes cheese with heart. In 1997, they started with a dream shared between two college friends and business partners, Sue Conley and Peggy Smith: To celebrate organic practices and spotlight the craftsmanship of local sustainable agriculture in Sonoma counties. Today, they are carrying the torch of the food revolution that started in their backyard. Organic. Farm-to-Table. Delicious, award-winning cheese. It’s in their DNA. And it defines their famous creations, including the beloved triple cream Mt Tam.

• The Meet the Makers Subscription ships on a fixed schedule (please see the Shipping Tab below).

• After signup, you or the recipient can email us at info@cheesegrotto.com for assistance modifying your delivery week, and we'll respond within 3 business days.

• You will be billed once for the total subscription package. At the end of the pre-paid period of one year, you will receive an email asking if you would like to extend your subscription.

• The quarterly subscription will be processed on a fixed schedule, on the Sunday prior to the week of shipping your order. 

• This is a one-time purchase that will automatically renew after the prepaid period. You will be notified via email and will have the opportunity to cancel before the autorenew happens.

• Cancellations to a prepaid subscription must be made 2 business days before the first box on the prepaid plan ships. We offer prepaid subscriptions as a way to prepay & save, and so we do not offer partial cancellations or refunds once we have started to prepare your order. We do offer replacements for any damaged items in transit, of course!

• Express Shipping is included in the listed price!

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

1. November 18th, 2025

2. December 15th, 2025

3. March 10th, 2026

4. June 2nd, 2026

• 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!

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 community 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 industrial food system, committing to these core values requires long hours of hard work and strict attention to detail.

Our quarterly subscription directly supports American artisan cheesemakers and the strengthening and diversification of our food system.