Petaluma’s big weekend of cheese and gourmet delights—California’s Artisan Cheese Festival is underway at the Sheraton Sonoma County

Cindy and Jon Wolfenbarger enjoy a glass of Sonoma Portworks’ new special reserve port, “Cask 3,” at Saturday’s Cheese and Chocolate Pairing seminar at California’s Artisan Cheese Festival, all weekend at the Sheraton Sonoma County in Petaluma. The San Francisco couple have been at all nine festivals. He lovingly surprised her with tickets to the first festival and they have made it a romantic get way ever since. The festival kicked off on Friday with farm tours. Saturday is focused on seminars, pairings, hands-on cheese-making classes and a roaming feast. Sunday delivers a celebrity chef demo and brunch and the Tasting Tent with opportunities to taste and buy limited batch artisan cheeses as well as the newest gourmet delights. Photo: Geneva Anderson

California’s Artisan Cheese Festival is back for its ninth year at the Sheraton Sonoma County in Petaluma and ARThound is just back from my first event of the day, a morning Cheese and Chocolate paring seminar with James Beard award-winning author and educator, Laura Werlin, and TCHO Chocolate’s E-Commerce guru, Heather Haskell.  Cheese and chocolate are two food favorites that may not sound like a match made in heaven, but together, with the right pairings, we explored how they can be transcendent. We had the chance to mix and match 6 cheeses with 6 chocolates and sips of Lagunitas Brewing Company beers and “Cask 3,” a special new reserve port from Petaluma’s Sonoma Portworks.  I was particularly enchanted with Willapa Hills’ “Lily Pad” cow’s milk cheese—a brand new hard cheese inspired by Gruyere—when paired with TCHO’s “66%” blended semi-sweet couverture chocolate from their baking line.  I was even more wowed when the duo met the with the smoky depths of Lagunitas Brewing Company’s “Imperial Stout,” a roasted malt barley with 9.9% alcohol.  The day is still young and there’s a round of afternoon seminars to go and this evenings’ Chefs vs. Chefs — The Best Bite, a popular roaming feast that will showcase top local Bay Area chefs using artisan cheeses in a variety of applications with more than 20 top restaurants, caterers, wineries and breweries in competition for our affection.

And did I mention samples galore?  Participants sample new, limited-production, and rare artisan cheeses paired with exquisite gourmet delights that accentuate and learn all about the art of making cheese.  The festival has non-profit status and its proceeds support California farmers and cheesemakers in their ongoing effort to advance sustainability.  Tickets are available for individual events, including Sunday’s popular Grand Tasting Tent (tasting and marketplace) at www.artisancheesefestival.com.

James Beard award-winning author and educator, Laura Werlin holds up a wedge of Cypress Grove Chevre’s creamy Humboldt Fog mold-ripened goat cheese, explaining that its central line of edible white ash is named after the local fog which rolls in from the Humboldt Bay where the cheese is made. After hours of tasting, Werlin and Heather Haskell of TCHO chocolate, decided to pair Humboldt Fog with TCHO’s “Bright,” a 67% cacao dark chocolate from Madagascar. When pairing cheese and chocolate, taste the cheese first and then the chocolate which tends to overpower if it is first on the palate. Photo: Geneva Anderson