Posts Tagged ‘Cheese’

Beehive Cheese Co. in Artisan Gift Baskets

In our ongoing quest for artisan products, we recently came across Beehive Cheese, a small-batch cheese company from Uintah, Utah. Brothers-in-law Pat and Tim are perfecting old world craftsmanship to create some of the most irresistible and unusual artisan cheeses on the market. They use only first-grade-quality whole Jersey milk from their local creamery.
Fancifull carries these wildly popular flavors, but check with us when ordering because they sell out quickly. These cheeses are also featured in our gourmet gift baskets.

Barely Buzzed:
A new American Original that is hand rubbed with Espresso and Lavender. Buzzes your tongue with a nutty, exotic and bold flavor

Promontory:
An Irish style cheese made with whole Jersey cow milk. Buttery, full-bodied and lively with snappy, citrus-like and fruity notes. Melts on your tongue and leaves a subtle sharp note in your mouth

Seahive
Seahive is hand rubbed with Beehive Wildflower Honey and local Redmond RealSalt. The honey is harvested from a local farm where the bees visit wildflowers and fruit orchards. The salt is from an ancient sea bed near Redmond, Utah, and contains unique flecks of color that are the result of more than 50 natural trace minerals.
These two elements impart a subtle rich flavor.

We have featured these cheeses in a great seagrass box (often used for our cheese gift baskets) and you can add it to any of our other gift baskets or come by and get some for yourself.

Exploring Wine and Food in Barolo, Italy

Piemonte was a pilgrimage for me and Wally. It is home of the Slow Food Movement, great cheese, and some of the most popular Italian Wines. Barolo is made there from the Nebbiolo grape, and is considered “The wine of kings and the king of wines.” I also knew with all the different vineyards, grapes, and designations that, like Burgundy, Piemonte was going to require a personal visit so I could wrap my head around this magical land of wine and food.

While there we were lucky enough to meet with several winemakers, all of whom made marvelous wines that are available to us in the U.S. One of our favorites Mauro Veglio. We met with his wife and partner, Daniela. She was charming and funny, with a beautiful cantina set off by a huge half-circle window overlooking the vineyards that was the perfect vantage point for Daniela to school us on the different vineyards and grapes of the region.

We sampled their Dolcetto, Barbera, and Barolos over a course of an hour or so. Now here is the exciting part: We have the Dolcetto and Barbera here in our shop now for your gift baskets. The Dolcetto is bright and vibrant, the Barbera a bit heavier, and both with a good acidity that pairs perfectly with the fatty foods of Piemonte. Both of these wines are featured together in one of our most popular Italian Gift Baskets: La Dolce Vita – the Piemonte version! Of course, you can always opt for one of them in many of our wine gift baskets as well.

Vella Cheese

On a trip to Sonoma last year, we made a point of visiting Vella Cheese Headquarters. This aged Sonoma Jack took us by surprise the first time we had it while dining at the Hollywood Bowl. I thought it was an Italian Pecorino, and with good reason, as I later found out. When Tom Vella started his own dairy in Sonoma in 1931, the Italian families of Northern California wanted a hard grating cheese, like their sheep’s milk pecorino or Parmesan of home. The Vella cheese company responded by carefully aging and nurturing their jack cheese, resulting in a delicious cheese and enduring popularity. We feature it in our Handmade Cheese Gift Basket, which showcases artisan California Cheese.

The success of Vella Cheese lies in the personal attention each day’s production is given. Quality starts in the pasture. Every cow is not the same. Every day is not sunny; every blade of grass is not green and lush. But, if you insist on the finest breeding of herds, the best feeds, the greatest care in milking and transporting the top grade milk, you have the best possible natural raw material, and you have set the stage for super cheese. One big advantage to us at Fancifull is that Vella cheese, due to its low moisture content, can stay unrefrigerated for a few days. This enables us to ship a first rate cheese economically in our Gourmet Gift Baskets with FedEx Ground or 3Day services with no compromise in quality. We also feature it in many of our Organic Gift Baskets as well as our Green Gifting Line because Vella adheres to strict principles which make it a sustainable product. Among those are:
They are the first solar powered business in Sonoma.
All the milk in their cheese comes from local Sonoma Happy Cows.
Their whey is biodynamically recycled by the dairy and local wineries.
Only natural ingredients go into their cheese and coatings.
The result is that we have an artisan product sustainably made, which tastes fantastic – sounds like a Fancifull product to me!

Rare Wine for an Italian Gift Basket

Today’s topic is a rare Italian wine from Piemonte – Ruchè di Castagnole Monferrato. If you’ve visited the Fancifull Gift Baskets web site or followed any of our blogs, I’m sure you’ve noticed how passionate we are about the foods we carry in our store and put into our gift baskets. Many of these require some clarification. This is certainly true in the case of the lovely Ruchè grape with it’s enticing floral and wild berry aromas.

“If it’s so good”, you may ask, “why haven’t I heard of it before it appeared as an option in one of your wine gift baskets?” Well, there are two reasons. Firstly, there just isn’t much of it! The Ruchè grape production comes from a mere 100 acres of vines in the region of Castagnole di Monferrato, which is near Asti in Piemonte, Northern Italy.

Secondly, the wines that get the attention in this area are the three B’s made from the Nebbiolo grape: Barbara, Barbaresco and Barolo! Tough competition indeed. But Ruchè (pronounced roo-KAY) is an absolute delight to have on the dinner table – and at a very affordable price. So, next time you want to send someone an Italian gift basket or just surprise them with a new wine in one of our wine gift baskets. I highly recommend this rare little gem that we have here. My mouth is watering just thinking of it and a creamy Gorgonzola cheese. And I’m really looking forward to trying this wine with the winemaker at his vineyard next week. Yes, we are headed for Italy, and this is one of our stops. Buon appetito!