• Home
    • About Janet
    • Media
    • Client List
    • Contact
    • Planet Cheese Blog
    • Planet Cheese Signup
    • Cheese Library
    • All Items
    • World Cheese Tour
    • Books
    • World Cheese Tour Classes
    • Other Classes & Events
    • Custom Class/Event Request
    • Cheese O'Clock Video Archive
    • Spring
    • Summer
    • Autumn
    • Winter
    • Comfort
Menu

Janet Fletcher

180 Stonecrest Dr
Napa, CA, 94558
(707) 265-0404
{ Janet Fletcher / Food Writer }

{ Janet Fletcher / Food Writer }

Janet Fletcher

  • Home
  • About
    • About Janet
    • Media
    • Client List
    • Contact
  • Planet Cheese
    • Planet Cheese Blog
    • Planet Cheese Signup
    • Cheese Library
  • Store
    • All Items
    • World Cheese Tour
    • Books
  • Classes
    • World Cheese Tour Classes
    • Other Classes & Events
    • Custom Class/Event Request
    • Cheese O'Clock Video Archive
  • Recipes
    • Spring
    • Summer
    • Autumn
    • Winter
    • Comfort

Cave Dweller

May 20, 2025 Douglas Fletcher
Olivia Haver - affineur

Guiding cheese from birth to maturity is a lot like parenting, albeit with less at stake. There’s no school for it, you learn on the job and the desired outcome is not guaranteed. Affinage, as the French call it, is all about keeping your precious charges on track, but every cheese—like every child—needs its own sort of nurturing.

Read more
Tags Olivia Haver, Daphne Zepos Teaching Award, affinage, Jasper Hill, aging cheese, cheese cave, Von Trapp Farmstead
Comment

A Star is Born

November 13, 2023 janet@janetfletcher.com
Firefly Farm's Carpenter's Wheel

If you are looking for an exceptional American cheese for your Thanksgiving festivities, or for a host gift, you won’t be disappointed by this beauty. It’s a recent release with a long origin story and absolutely worth the wait. A collaboration between the Maryland creamery that produced it and the New York affinage team that nurtured it from infancy to its prime, this aromatic goat cheese seduced me at the first sniff. I’m hoping that affinage—expert cheese aging—will become more of a thing in this country, as it is in Europe, and that success stories like this one will pave the way.

Read more
In From: U.S., Milk: Goat Tags goat cheese, aged goat cheese, affinage, Murray’s, Firefly Farms, Southern cheese
Comment

Wandering the Backroads

July 6, 2021 janet@janetfletcher.com
Planet Cheese 27 _DSC4363.jpg

My dream job—and maybe yours, too—would be traveling the backroads of Europe as a Cheese Explorer, hunting for undiscovered cheeses at local farmers’ markets and in off-the-beaten-path bistros. I don’t get to do this but, fortunately, others do. That’s how American distributors keep receiving exquisite, unusual wheels from Europe that are hardly known there. This goat’s milk beauty comes from a scenic part of western France called Venise Verte (“Green Venice”). Did you even know this lush, canal-laced region existed? I didn’t, but I intend to go at the first opportunity. Maybe I’ll stumble on more goat cheeses as fabulous as this one.

Read more
In From: France, Milk: Goat Tags goat cheese, French cheese, chèvre, fromage de chèvre, Hervé Mons, affinage, Venise Verte, Tomme de la Chataigneraie
5 Comments

Vintage Cheese

February 21, 2017 janet@janetfletcher.com
Meg Smith Photography

Meg Smith Photography

My high-school French teacher introduced me to Roquefort, and I remember that she served it with butter. Purists will wince but the butter softened the bite, and it helped my teenage palate enjoy the experience. I still think it’s a good trick for a blue that’s too strong. But you won’t want butter with Bleu 1924. This luscious new French blue tastes like it has butter in it.

Read more
In From: France, Milk: Cow, Milk: Sheep, Milk: Mixed Tags Roquefort, Stilton, Hervé Mons, Auvergne, blue cheese, appellation d’origine, affinage, affineur, Francois Kerautret
12 Comments
 

Subscribe!

We respect your privacy.

Thank you!
Planet Cheese RSS

Browse the Archive:

Planet Cheese Blog

Welcome to my world: a fragrant, fascinating universe devoted to great cheese. In this and future Planet Cheese posts, you’ll find profiles of the world’s best cheeses plus insights into everything cheese: shops, recipes, interviews, pairing discoveries, classes, videos, travel. If you haven’t already done so, sign up here - it’s complimentary - and join me in learning something new about cheese every week.


NEW!
2025 World Cheese Tour Class Schedule


Monthly
through November

June 10: SOLD OUT
Reserve for July
Reserve for August
5:30 pm to 7:30 pm
Winston’s Café
1517 Third Street
Napa


Order signed copies
Free Shipping!

Just received a new shipment of Gather. You can order signed copies here. Third-class shipping is free.

Cheese&Wine
Cheese-Beer
BS-Yogurt.jpg
BS-Wine Country Table.jpg
EatingLocal
BS-FFFM-New1.jpg

Powered by Squarespace
     Photographs: Douglas Fletcher, Ed Anderson, Megan Clouse, Faith Echtermeyer, Eva Kolenko,
Victoria Pearson, Sara Remington and Meg Smith
Design: Jennifer Barry Design | Props: Tangerine Prop Shop | © 2024 Janet Fletcher, All Rights Reserved