{"id":27682,"date":"2016-07-08T10:59:27","date_gmt":"2016-07-08T14:59:27","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/developer83.wordpress-developer.us\/culturecheesemag\/?p=27682"},"modified":"2016-07-08T10:59:27","modified_gmt":"2016-07-08T14:59:27","slug":"woman-behind-baby-goats","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/developer83.wordpress-developer.us\/culturecheesemag\/woman-behind-baby-goats\/","title":{"rendered":"The Woman Behind the Baby Goats"},"content":{"rendered":"

If you had any exposure to social media in February of this year, you probably heard talk of a volunteer project<\/a> to cuddle baby goats in sweaters. Maybe you were even one of the lucky few who got to add a \u201cGoat Cuddler\u201d line to your resume. Caromont Farm<\/a> was the purveyor of that squeal-inducing opportunity.<\/p>\n

Gail Hobbs-Page\u2019s farm and cheesemaking operation is actually much more<\/a> than an excuse to snuggle with besweatered baby goats. Hobbs-Page started making cheese in 2005 when Dave Matthews (yes, that<\/em> Dave Matthews) was seeking a goat farmer to make cheese on his Charlottesville, Va., farm. That venture only lasted for a year, but Hobbs-Page got to keep the goats upon the cutting of the farm\u2019s dairy operations, and she continued making cheese—this time with her husband, Daniel Page.<\/p>\n

Caromont Farm, just outside of Estmont, Va., and 23 miles south of Charlottesville, features a mishmash of structures, adding to the laid-back charm of the robust and evolving operation. At the far end sits the farmhouse, and throughout the rest of the farm there is a dairy parlor, a cheese-aging room, a hoop barn to shelter the goats, and a trailer where interns often stay.<\/p>\n

Hobbs-Page came to cheesemaking after 26 years as a restaurant chef, looking for a change of pace. Although she grew up on a peanut and tobacco farm, professionally making and selling cheese was a new challenge. \u201cWe had never packaged anything,\u201d she told the Washington Post. \u201cWe had never shipped anything. We also knew very little about affinage, about rind development or culturing times.\u201d<\/p>\n

But that has hardly slowed her down. Caromont\u2019s new sales manager, Lisa Bogan, says of Hobbs-Page, \u201cGail is relentless\u2026 She just goes and goes. You have to have that to be a farmer.\u201d Since its inception, Caromont has grown and matured—it now produces about 30,000 pounds and five varieties of cheese per year. In fact, in 2014, Hobbs-Page\u2019s flagship cheese, Estmontonian, won second place in the American Cheese Society competition, an honor that brought in more publicity than the farm was prepared for. \u201cIt was a bit of a nightmare,\u201d Hobbs-Page confesses, \u201cbut you learn from that.\u201d<\/p>\n

The small cheese scene in Virginia is developing at a steady clip, hot on the heels of a maturing wine industry. Caromont itself is also still growing and refining its mission. In addition to expanding the actual cheesemaking operation, Hobbs-Page hopes to buy land to use as a therapy farm, buoyed by the reception of the goat cuddling opportunity in February.<\/p>\n

Caromont has come a long way since its Dave Matthews days. You\u2019ll come for the baby goats and stay for the amazing cheese.<\/p>\n

Feature Photo Credit: Jay Westcott via The Washington Post<\/a><\/em><\/small><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Caromont Farms, famed for its viral request for volunteers to snuggle with baby goats during kidding season, expands, evolves, and thrives<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":78,"featured_media":27683,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"wprm-recipe-roundup-name":"","wprm-recipe-roundup-description":"","cybocfi_hide_featured_image":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[17],"tags":[],"coauthors":[875],"class_list":["post-27682","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-cheese-bites"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nThe Woman Behind the Baby Goats - culture: the word on cheese<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/developer83.wordpress-developer.us\/culturecheesemag\/woman-behind-baby-goats\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"The Woman Behind the Baby Goats\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Caromont Farms, famed for its viral request for volunteers to snuggle with baby goats during kidding season, expands, evolves, and thrives\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/developer83.wordpress-developer.us\/culturecheesemag\/woman-behind-baby-goats\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"culture: the word on cheese\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2016-07-08T14:59:27+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/developer83.wordpress-developer.us\/culturecheesemag\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/06\/HobbsPageGoats.jpeg\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"749\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"368\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/jpeg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Caroline Fenn\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Caroline Fenn\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"2 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/developer83.wordpress-developer.us\/culturecheesemag\/woman-behind-baby-goats\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/developer83.wordpress-developer.us\/culturecheesemag\/woman-behind-baby-goats\/\",\"name\":\"The Woman Behind the Baby Goats - 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