Small creamery makes big-name blue cheese

CENTRAL POINT, Ore. – David Gremmels and Cary Bryant had scoured the New England countryside looking for a blue cheese to feature at their wine bar, when they heard they ought to look in their own backyard.

A friend steered them to master cheesemaker Ignazio Vella, who was seeking a buyer for his Rogue River Valley Creamery. He did not like the idea of selling to a major corporation that would keep the good name his late father had built since 1935, but shut down the factory and move production.

“He just kind of leaned up to the table and said, ‘Well, fellas, if you want the cheese, you’re going to have to buy the factory,’.” said Gremmels. “Our jaws dropped.”

Two years later, the wine bar has yet to open in nearby Ashland, but Gremmels and Bryant have built Rogue Creamery – they shortened the name for better brand recognition – into a growing wedge of the small world of artisanal cheeses.

And they developed a signature cheese – Rogue River Blue – that won gold medals the last two years at the World Cheese Awards in London.

Murray’s Cheese Shop in New York’s Greenwich Village, which specializes in cheeses made in small batches by loving hands, buys all the Rogue River Blue it can, “because it’s one of the best blues you can get,” said counter manager Tom Mylan.

“When you bite into most blues, there’s kind of a spike of sharpness,” said Mylan. “This is more like a sine wave. It slides into your mouth and changes from fruity to sharp to nutty and then sort of vegetal and then creamy and then rolls back off your palate.”

That’s quite an accomplishment for a couple of guys looking for cheese to eat, not cheese to make.

Since buying the creamery on July 1, 2002, they have doubled production to 300,000 pounds a year of cheddar and blue cheeses, instituting new varieties of each, and increased the number of employees from three to 23. They are bumping production of Rogue River Blue from 900 wheels this year to 3,000.

They sell retail at their own store at the creamery, and at farmers’ markets in Portland, Grants Pass and Ashland. They also sell over the Internet.