Vermonters aim to be the big cheese

They make their own handcrafted Gouda, a cheese so sophisticated in flavor that it isn't even comparable to the washed-out grocery-store variety. The Wrights have won American Cheese Society awards for their farmstead and maple-smoked Goudas, both made with fresh raw milk, not the pasteurized stuff that is the main ingredient in the store-bought product.

They sell the cheese, and other Vermont products and gifts, from a store on the farm. The cheese-making room is visible from the shop, and the Wrights welcome an audience when they make cheese from their herd's milk (usually two to three days each week).

The Taylor Farm is one of 34 on the Vermont Cheese Trail, a creation of the Vermont Cheese Council to promote a product for which the state is famous. The 34 cheese-makers in the group produce more than 150 farmstead and artisanal varieties.

Vermont has become the Napa Valley of cheese, a prediction that Allison Hooper made over a decade ago. Hooper is the owner of the Vermont Butter & Cheese Co., founding president of the Vermont Cheese Council, and current president of the American Cheese Society. She points out that people can drive around the state sampling cheese, much like tourists visiting vineyards around Northern California.

Cheese-makers along the trail tend to be clustered, making it easy to visit a few in one day.

"When you look at cheese-making and farming, it's broken up geographically," says Ellen Ecker Ogden, coordinator of the council and author of "The Vermont Cheese Book," which sketches the landscape of the state's artisanal industry.

"If you're in Burlington, there are five or six cheese-makers up there," she says. "If you're near Londonderry, there are five or six cheese-makers around there as well. You get a sense of what makes different cheeses in different places."