Midnight Moon a wonderful goats’ milk cheese

I think that Cypress Grove’s Midnight Moon is a wonderful goats’ milk cheese. Aged six months or more, it is a pale, ivory color, firm and dense and smooth with the slight graininess of a long-aged cheese. The flavor is nutty and brown-buttery, with prominent caramel notes. The wheel is finished in a beautiful black wax and it has a label that shows a young woman dressed in a peasant style. The cheese is made in Europe exclusively for Cypress Grove Chevre; Several years ago, I heard that Cypress Grove cheesemaker Mary Kuehn had planned to perfect the cheese in Holland and then bring it to California where she makes most of her other cheeses. This seemed odd to me because cheese making relies on its terroir in much the same way that wine making does. The atmosphere, the water, the feed

and grasses and the soil that the grasses grow from have an important effect on the cheese made in those circumstances. So attempting to make the same Midnight Moon in the US would be very difficult, probably impossible. And this cheese has gotten some really impressive recognition—2002 and 2003 Best of Show at the New York International Fancy Food Convention. You don’t want to mess with a winner!

And it has been a winner with the public. Even people who usually dislike goats’ milk often enjoy Midnight Moon, and people who like Merlot usually find that it pairs exceptionally well with Midnight Moon. It also pairs well with Syrah and Sangiovese and Riesling and Gewuerztraminer among the
whites. Semi-hard goats’ milk cheeses often pair well this way, but Midnight Moon is exceptional.

As much as I have enjoyed Midnight Moon by itself or with wine, one of my favorite qualities of the cheese is the name that Cypress Grove has given it. I think that the folks at Cypress Grove really have a wonderful sense of humor. They are situated in Humboldt County, California, once a hot-bed of the drug culture, and there make Purple Haze, a chevre with fennel and lavender, Humboldt Fog, a delicious semi-soft, mold-ripened cheese, and Lamb Chopper, an aged sheep’s milk gouda that they advertise as a cheese that was “born to be mild.” And they produce Midnight Moon with the young woman on its label. They have given the young woman a name; she is Bella–Bella DeBall.