The North Bay's cheesemaking culture gets its own weekend: seminars and farm tours give way to a grand tasting and artisan marketplace in Petaluma, plus a cheese crawl through the makers at The Barlow in Sebastopol. Two decades in, and still the region's definitive curd-and-cracker pilgrimage.
The North Bay's cheesemaking culture gets its own weekend: seminars and farm tours give way to a grand tasting and artisan marketplace in Petaluma, plus a cheese crawl through the makers at The Barlow in Sebastopol. Two decades in, and still the region's definitive curd-and-cracker pilgrimage.
The festival spreads across several days. Weekday and weekend seminars, cheese-and-wine pairings, and farm tours out to local dairies fill the early hours, then the anchor events take over: a grand tasting and artisan marketplace in Petaluma where dozens of producers pour and sample, plus a self-paced cheese crawl through the makers and shops at The Barlow in Sebastopol. Individual events are ticketed separately, and the marquee tastings and tours tend to sell out, so book ahead.
What sets this weekend apart is how close it puts you to the people doing the work: the cheesemakers pouring their own, the goat and sheep ranchers who supply the milk, the affineurs who age the wheels. Between guided tastings and hands-on seminars, it plays less like a trade show than a family reunion for a working dairy region, and casual fans end up rubbing elbows with the same folks stocking the best cheese counters in the state.
Produced by its own long-running organizing team, working with the North Bay's cheesemakers, dairies, and food community to spotlight California's artisan cheese scene each spring.
Visit organizer site →Each winery links to its LocaleTerroir page.
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