The highly anticipated four-day California’s Artisan Cheese Festival returns to the Sheraton Sonoma County – Petaluma March 26 – 29, 2010. The nonprofit festival celebrates the artisan cheesemaking community by bringing cheese lovers together to support, enjoy, and learn more about handcrafted artisan cheeses. In addition, the festival helps the artisan cheesemaking community by contributing 10 percent of all ticket proceeds to nonprofit organizations who support the cheese and agricultural industry. Beneficiaries include the Sonoma Land Trust, Marin Agricultural Land Trust, California Artisan Cheese Guild, and the Future Farmers of America, Petaluma branch. The festival also supports the Redwood Empire Food Bank, which is working to eliminate hunger in Sonoma County.
The Artisan Cheese Festival’s action-packed weekend boasts a line-up of top artisan cheese experts, authors, chefs, and winemakers conducting seminars, pairings, tastings, and cheese-filled demonstrations. A full list of participants will be released over the course of the next couple of weeks, but a few of the 2010 headliners include: Laura Werlin, Clark Wolf, Janet Fletcher, Sue Conley and Peg Smith, Will Edwards, Juliana Uruburu, and Chef John Ash and Chef Andy Wild.
A quick snapshot of the weekend events includes:
Friday, March 26: A full day of Creamery and Farm tours, followed by a Restaurant Dine Around with special Artisan Cheese Festival-inspired menus.
Saturday, March 27: A full day of educational seminars, tastings, and cheesemaking demos. The evening’s event “Artisan Grand Tasting: Cheese, Chefs and Wine”, led by Chef, Author, and Radio Personality John Ash, is an evening filled with fabulous dishes and interacting with the cheesemakers, winemakers and chefs who prepared them.
Sunday, March 28: Artisan Marketplace – over 60 vendors, artisan cheesemakers, vintners, craft brewers, and chef demos. New this year: Learn Cheesemaking at Home with expert and author, Mary Karlin, on the demonstration stage.
Monday March 29: New this year: The California Artisan Cheese Guild will host an all-day workshop for industry professionals: cheese retailers, chefs and cheese professionals.
A complete schedule of events, full list of participants, and information on ticket purchases will be posted in early December. You can get updates by fanning the Artisan Cheese Festival on Facebook and following them on Twitter. All events are priced separately and the Sheraton Sonoma County – Petaluma will offer special discounted rates for festival goers.
Would like to know when the next festival will take place? Sounds like my kinda of weekend.
Thanks