Virginia Dairy Takes First Place

Galax, Virginia (July 28, 2008) - Meadow Creek Dairy's Grayson cheese was awarded first place in the Farmstead Cheese category at the 25th Annual American Cheese Society Competition and took second place for Best of Show.

"Like all good washed-rind cheeses, Grayson is really made in the cellar," says cheesemaker Helen Feete. "While we've been making Grayson for eight years, it took several trips to Europe as well as the completion of our new cellar before I could confidently say we had the Grayson where we wanted it." Grayson is the dairy's best selling cheese, available in shops from New York to San Francisco.

The American Cheese Society is an association dedicated to promoting artisanal and farmstead cheeses. This year's competition, held in Chicago, Illinois, featured 1,150 cheeses from  North American cheesemakers. The Farmstead Cheese category, which is limited to cheeses produced from the milk of a single farm, is one of the most competitive and sought-after awards at the competition. The Best of Show cheeses are selected from the first-place winners in each of the competition's 22 categories.

Meadow Creek Dairy is a family run farmstead operation located outside Galax, Virginia which specializes in aged raw milk cheeses. They established their grade A dairy in 1988 and began making cheese in 1998. Along with Grayson, they make Mountaineer, an alpine-style cheese; Whitetop, a bloomy rind cheese;  and Appalachian, the cheese which took third place in the American Cheese Society's Farmstead category in 2006. Grayson had previously taken third place in the Farmstead category in 2007.

For more information on the dairy, visit their website www.meadowcreekdairy.com.

(Download a pdf version of this press release here.)