Gail Hobbs-Page was given her first pair of goats as a child growing up on a North Carolina farm. “I loved their milk, and I loved the idea that I could make many things from their milk,” Gail remembers. “Once I started tending to the goats, they became very precious to me because they nourish us. I guess they kind of got into my blood.” Today, Gail and her husband own Caromont Farm in Esmont. Tucked away in the rolling hills of the Piedmont with a herd of more than fifty Nubian, La Mancha, and Alpine goats, she produces farmstead, artisan cheeses. Gail speaks passionately about the potential for Virginia’s terroir—a wine-making term meaning the expression of a place through the taste of the produce grown in that area. While cheese making has been an important method of cold storage since Virginia’s colonial period, the making of artisan cheeses is largely a new tradition in Virginia, with Gail leading the way. Gail will be apprenticing Kyle L. Kilduff, who she believes is well on his way to becoming a fine cheese maker.
Gallery
A goat at Caromont Farms. (Pat Jarrett/The Virginia Folklife Program)
Kyle Kilduf holds a cheese wheel. (Pat Jarrett/The Virginia Folklife Program)
Gail Hobbs-Page's blue glove is covered in soft cheese. (Pat Jarrett/The Virginia Folklife Program)
Cheese created at Caromont Farms. (Pat Jarrett/The Virginia Folklife Program)
