{"id":2688,"date":"2024-01-29T04:30:13","date_gmt":"2024-01-29T04:30:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.sutyo.com\/how-the-fiscalini-family-became-award-winning-cheesemakers\/"},"modified":"2024-01-29T04:30:13","modified_gmt":"2024-01-29T04:30:13","slug":"how-the-fiscalini-family-became-award-winning-cheesemakers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.sutyo.com\/tr\/how-the-fiscalini-family-became-award-winning-cheesemakers\/","title":{"rendered":"How the Fiscalini Family Became Award Winning Cheesemakers"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Editor\u2019s note: Georgia Freedman and I met Brian Fiscalini at the Cheesemonger Invitational in San Francisco. Hearing the story of his family\u2019s farmstead cheese, I knew we would want to feature it. So did Georgia. Check out her <\/em>interview with Brian<\/em><\/a> published in her terrific newsletter. <\/em><\/p>\n

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\"Fiscalini<\/p>\n<\/figure>\n

The Fiscalini family of Modesto, California, has been in the dairy business for generations, but their creamery didn\u2019t begin making cheese until 2000 under the brand name Fiscalini Farmstead<\/a>. When they did, the awards came quickly: In 2001, their signature San Joaquin Gold won a gold medal in the first competition they ever entered. In 2002, their bandaged-wrapped cheddar was named the Best Farmhouse Cheese in America. And in 2007, that same cheese won \u201cBest Cheddar in the World\u201d in London. We caught up with Brian Fiscalini, the creamery\u2019s CEO, earlier this year and learned about the family\u2019s history in the dairy industry, how they started making cheese, how they develop new styles, and how combining a dairy farm with a cheese operation helps them focus on sustainability.<\/p>\n

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A Family Tradition<\/strong><\/h2>\n

The Fiscalinis first came to California from Switzerland in the late 1800s and opened a dairy in Cambria, on California\u2019s Central Coast. Around 1910, John B. Fiscalini (Brian\u2019s great-grandfather) learned that a series of dams and canals was being built for agricultural irrigation in the Central Valley. He decided to buy property in Modesto and open his own dairy. \u201cHe kind of broke off from the rest of the family,\u201d says Brian. \u201cHe and his wife moved to Modesto, started their family, and started dairy farming on the same land that we still own today.\u201d<\/p>\n

For decades, the family sold their milk to other creameries and processors, including big names like Nestle and Safeway. But in 2000, Brian\u2019s father, John Fiscalini, learned that their family had made cheese in Switzerland (before emigrating to the U.S.) and decided to follow that model again. While the move was primarily a financial decision\u2014a way to have more control over the price they could sell their milk for\u2014it was also a way of showcasing the milk\u2019s quality. \u201cI think my dad was passionate about creating our own branded product his entire life,\u201d says Brian, noting that even as a kid, his father had wanted to know where the family\u2019s milk went and how he could find it in the local grocery store. \u201cBut it wasn\u2019t until 2000 that he really took it seriously.\u201d<\/p>\n

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\"Fiscalini<\/p>\n<\/figure>\n

Taking a Creative Approach to Developing Cheeses <\/strong><\/h2>\n

The first cheeses the Fiscalinis made were a bit of an experiment. When they hired their first cheesemaker, Tom Putler, no one on the team really had much experience. They started out trying to make a fontina, but when they entered this cheese in a competition, they judges told them it didn\u2019t qualify in that category. \u201cWe followed the fontina recipes that we had access to, and we thought it was a pretty decent tasting cheese,\u201d says Brian. \u201cThe judges came back to us and said, \u2018We\u2019ve got good news and bad news: The good news is, you\u2019ve won a gold medal for this cheese that you entered into our competition. The bad news is, it\u2019s not fontina, and it doesn\u2019t fall into any other of our cheese categories, so you accidentally created a new cheese.\u201d That cheese, which they renamed San Joaquin Gold, became one of their signature products.<\/p>\n

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\"Fiscalini<\/p>\n<\/figure>\n

Over time, their expertise grew, as did their team. And with every new cheesemaker, they added more styles to their repertoire. Their next cheesemaker, Mariano Gonzales (who came from a cheesemaking family in Paraguay), had trained at Shelburne Farms, which is known for cloth-bound cheddar, so he developed the Fiscalini\u2019s Old World Aged Cheddar. Over the years, they\u2019ve also become known for their flavored cheeses, like their new cranberry habanero cheddar. But their process for developing new products remains very informal.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe don\u2019t have a research and development team,\u201d says Brian. \u201cIt is my father, my sister, myself, and our cheesemakers having a conversation around a table, usually with some wine open. We start talking about what flavors we think will do well and the cheeses that we like, and then we make them. If they\u2019re any good, we share them with people, and if they like them, we take them to market.\u201d <\/p>\n

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\"Fiscalini<\/p>\n<\/figure>\n

Their Purple Moon\u2014a farmhouse cheddar soaked overnight in a petit syrah blend\u2014was John\u2019s idea, while the Craft Beer Cheddar (made by soaking the curds in an imperial stout) came from Gonzales, who liked drinking craft beer and finding unique beer flavors (editor\u2019s note: we recently featured the Craft Beer Cheddar in a story about beer cheese<\/a>). Their alpine-style Lionza cheese was developed as an homage to their Swiss heritage. \u00a0\u201cOur current cheesemaker is a gentleman named Alex Borgo, and we\u2019re really excited about what Alex bring to the table,\u201d says Brian. \u201cI can guarantee that in the next few years, Alex is going to be bringing some new, exciting cheeses to the Fiscalini line.\u201d\u00a0 <\/p>\n

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Focusing on Sustainability <\/strong><\/h2>\n

With 500 acres of farmland (only a small fraction of which is used by the dairy), Fiscalini Farmstead grows 70 percent of the feed for their herd, including corn and wheat (for hay). The rest of the animals\u2019 feed is made up of other grains and commodities that aren\u2019t as sustainable to grow in California but are added to the cows\u2019 diets to improve their health and the quality of the milk. \u201cOur farming practices have been verified as sustainable by Nestle, who we sell [some of] our milk to. Our carbon sequestration score was very positive, and the carbon intensity score was a negative number,\u201d says Brian. \u201cWe recycle our manure\u2014we apply it to our fields\u2014and we don\u2019t use commercial fertilizers.\u201d<\/p>\n

The farm also operates methane digester tanks, which process all of the waste produced at the dairy and convert it into electricity. In total, the farm produces about three times more electricity than it uses. \u201cWe\u2019re working through the process to be certified carbon neutral or negative. It\u2019s something we\u2019ve been working toward for a number of years, and I can feel that it\u2019s going to be here pretty soon,\u201d says Brian.<\/p>\n<\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Editor\u2019s note: Georgia Freedman and I met Brian Fiscalini at the Cheesemonger Invitational in San Francisco. Hearing the story of his family\u2019s farmstead cheese, I knew we would want to feature it. So did Georgia. Check out her interview with Brian published in her terrific newsletter. The Fiscalini family of Modesto, California, has been in … Okumaya devam et “How the Fiscalini Family Became Award Winning Cheesemakers”<\/span><\/a><\/p>","protected":false},"author":1271,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_active":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_note":"","_exactmetrics_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[395],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2688","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-milk-and-diary"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.sutyo.com\/tr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2688","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.sutyo.com\/tr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.sutyo.com\/tr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.sutyo.com\/tr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1271"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.sutyo.com\/tr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2688"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/www.sutyo.com\/tr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2688\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.sutyo.com\/tr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2688"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.sutyo.com\/tr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2688"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.sutyo.com\/tr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2688"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}