4th Annual Artisan Cheese Festival in California's Wine Country

Today marks the end of the 4th Annual California Artisan Cheese Festival held in rural Petaluma, California smack dab in the heart of winemaking county.

"Spring Hill Jersey Cheese, Cowgirl Creamery, Marin French Cheese Company and Bellwether Farms are a few of the many cheesemakers in southern Sonoma and northern Marin counties — helping to make Petaluma the prime location for the California Artisan Cheese Festival." (see full article)

Artisan cheese is gaining a renewed appreciation, running parallel to the Slow Food movement, where regional and traditional methods of farming and production are encouraged. Handcraftsmenship, rather than mass industrial production, with a reverence for a more basic way of living and eating has gained increasing momentum especially in the last decade.