Friday was Donna’s birthday, which coincides with my youngest daughter Shauna’s birthday. We had a full day planned. Donna had a couple of phone calls with family and friends before she went out for a walk in the morning. After lunch, we rode the Spyder from our location at the Rolling Hills RV Park to Orland – a small town about 10 miles away. Our destination was Pedrozo Dairy and Cheese Company.

We had an appointment to meet owner Tim Pedrozo and take a tour. We arrived at 1:30pm and were invited to come inside while Tim was turning cheese wheels. I’ve never watched cheese making in progress before. Tim had large wheels of cheese wrapped in cheesecloth that were being pressed in a circular plastic form. This shapes the cheese wheel while moisture is driven out. We arrived at the time Tim needed to turn the cheese wheels over and re-wrap them.

We learned that the cheese he was working with had been raw (unpasteurized) milk that morning. The milk comes from a herd of 30 dairy cows that Tim keeps on the property. These cows are all grass fed in a pasture behind the cheese making building. After the cows are milked – twice daily – the milk is chilled to 45 degrees. This keeps the milk stable until it’s pumped into a large stainless steel vat.

The milk is warmed in stages. First the temperature is brought up to 96 degrees. Then it’s warmed to 102 degrees and a bacteria starter culture is added. The culture converts sugars in the milk to lactic acid. Rennet is added to coagulate the milk and curd forms. A special knife called a harp is used in the vat to cut the curd.

The moisture (whey) is separated from the curd and the curds are formed into wheels in the plastic forms.

Tim’s equipment includes pneumatic presses that apply light pressure to the cheese wheel in the forms. The cheese wheels he was working with were large – about 11 pounds each. Next the cheese wheel is soaked in a brine.

Tim soaks them for about two hours per pound of cheese so the large wheels soak for up to 24 hours. The brine creates the tough outer skin of the cheese wheel. Next the wheels are marked and put onto aging racks in a temperature-controlled room. The cheese is aged for a minimum of 60 days. He had some cheese wheels that were more than six months old and still aging. As it ages, the character of the cheese changes. It becomes harder and dryer and the flavor profile is affected.

Tim is a third-generation dairy farmer. His grandfather emigrated from the Azores – an island region of Portugal – where he was dairy farmer. Tim originally lived in Merced in the San Joaquin valley but found that running a fluid milk dairy with a small herd of cows wouldn’t sustain the farm. So he bought a farm in Orland and moved the cows in 1996 and started making cheese.

Northern Gold is Pedrozo’s main product and it has variations including peppercorn, sweet Italian red pepper, garlic and herb and tartufello (truffle). He also has a specialty cheese called Tipsy Cow – it’s washed in Mount Tehama’s petite syrah giving it a purple rind – and a couple of other specialty cheeses made in two-pound wheels.

Tim cut samples of his cheeses which we enjoyed while we talked. We left there after purchasing six wedges of different cheeses. Tim told us about another place across town that we should visit. It’s called Walnut Avenue Ranch. It’s a small store selling a wide variety of locally grown nuts.

We found the Walnut Avenue Ranch and sampled a few offerings. We ended up buying almond brittle with dark chocolate, dark chocolate covered almonds, cinnamon almonds and coconut macaroon almonds.

Next up was a 30-mile ride to New Clairvaux Vineyard in Vina, California. This is a working monastery with Trappist monks. The property was the location of a small one-acre vineyard started by Peter Lassen in 1846. In 1852, a businessman and winemaker named Henry Gerke bought the property and expanded the vineyard to 100 acres. He established the small town of Vina and his wine business prospered. In 1881, California governor Leland Stanford purchased the land and expanded the operation to 55,000 acres. It became the largest wine making operation in the world with an annual production of more than two million gallons and 4,000 acres of vineyard. The land was sold off in 1919, just before Prohibition. In 1955, the heart of “The Great Vina Ranch,” some six-hundred acres, was purchased by Trappist-Cistercian monks and became the Abbey of New Clairvaux.

The abbey grows walnuts, almonds and of course grapes. Aimee Sunseri, a fifth-generation winemaker is the winemaker for New Clairvaux. We arrived there at about 3:30pm and tasted five wines.

We saw a bouquet of flowers with a Happy Birthday card. We joked about them putting it out for Donna! It was actually for one of the employees.

The Barbera was outstanding and we left with two bottles – more birthday plunder for Donna.

We were back home from our 70-mile loop on the Spyder before 5pm. We had time to shower and dress for dinner. We had a reservation at Timbers Steakhouse in the Rolling Hills Casino at 6pm. The Timbers Steakhouse is probably the nicest dinner restaurant in the area. It’s small – eight booths and eight free-standing tables.

I ordered a 14-ounce cut of prime rib while Donna had artichoke-crusted Alaskan halibut. We split a bottle of cabernet with our dinner.

We ended the day enjoying the evening outside – sipping more wine, talking and watching the sunset.

We had plans again for Saturday, but I’ll put that in another post as this is getting too long.