By JANET FLETCHER

WE UNDERSTAND WHY IT’S BEST TO EAT A RIPE GEORGIA PEACH on a hot summer’s day. Or enjoy a butternut squash as the temperatures begin to drop. But even food-savvy consumers don’t necessarily realize that cheeses have seasons, too. That’s not to imply that cheeses should be savored only at their presumed seasonal peaks. If well made and well handled, many cheeses have pleasure to offer all year long. However, becoming more attuned to the seasonal nature of some cheeses will not only help you offer products at their most desirable, but will also give you a better explanation for why certain batches are special and why you can’t always give shoppers the cheeses they crave.

Understanding the Cycle
Seasonality comes into play at the cheese counter for multiple reasons, most of them tied to animal husbandry. The breeding cycle, especially with sheep and goats, determines the cheesemaker’s schedule. Both animals have reproductive cycles that are aligned with the amount of daylight available and go into heat when days get shorter. Goats have a slightly wider window for reproduction, but unless they are given hormones, they will kid primarily between December and May.

Vermont Shepherd Farm, source of the acclaimed Vermont Shepherd cheese, operates on a typical schedule for a dairy-sheep enterprise. The ewes are bred in the fall and give birth in early spring. By the time the young lambs are weaned and ready to graze, the spring pasture is lush. Milking and cheesemaking begin then and continue until fall, when snow buries the pasture and the sheep go dry, or stop producing milk. So cheesemaking is limited by nature to about seven months of the year.

In other locales known for sheep’s milk cheese—La Mancha in Spain or the Basque region of France, for example—the production calendar may differ slightly, but remains linked to the ewes’ breeding cycle.

A cow dairy can have a milk supply year-round by staggering the breeding. Still, some produce cheese only seasonally, when they believe the milk is best. Uplands Cheese Company in Wisconsin makes its alpine-style Pleasant Ridge Reserve only from late spring until fall.

“To get the characteristic flavor, the cheese needs to be made from milk when the cows are on pasture,” says partner Mike Gingrich. The milk is blander and less rich in the winter, when the cows are on dry feed, so the dairy sells the milk rather than make cheese that would not be up to its standards.

The Right Amount of Fat
There’s yet another seasonal variable that affects cheese quality, and it has little to do with pasture. The composition of the milk—the amount of fat and casein (milk protein) and the ratio of these key cheese components—can vary dramatically throughout the season, especially if the animals all give birth around the same time. That’s because a dairy animal’s milk is richest in the weeks after it gives birth—nature’s way of looking after the young—with richness climbing again at the end of the lactation cycle. In between, the milk solids—the cheesemaker’s word for the fat and casein—can dip appreciably, with an impact on cheese yield and quality.

“In the middle of summer, the goat milk is almost like it has been watered down,” says Jennifer Bice of California’s Redwood Hill Farm. “The goats are drinking more water and they give higher volume, but with less butterfat.”

Industrial dairies standardize the fat-casein ratio throughout the year to get consistent results; artisan cheesemakers like Bice adjust their recipes. Consequently, a cheese such as Redwood Hill’s Camellia becomes a challenge to make in summer. “It’s much better fall through spring,” admits Bice, “because it’s higher in the butterfat that makes it get ripe and runny.”

Sun, Rain and Other Considerations
Weather has an impact on cheese quality, too—not only in the cellar, where warmth, dampness or dryness can affect bacteria and mold growth, but also in the distribution system. Blue cheeses are particularly susceptible to decline in warm weather so some retailers, like Juliana Uruburu of the Pasta Shop in Oakland and Berkeley, Calif., adjust inventory accordingly. “I have more West Coast blues in summer because they don’t have to travel,” says Uruburu. “If I’m bringing a blue in from the South of France, it’s much riskier.”

Cheeses also exhibit seasonality in how well they fit with other seasonal foods or activities. Mozzarella in every permutation is summer’s quintessential cheese because fresh tomatoes peak then. Steve Jones, proprietor of Steve’s Cheese in Portland, Ore., says he sells more Cheddar in fall when the apple harvest gets underway; more mountain cheeses such as Comté in winter when consumers start preparing gratins and fondue; and more triple-cream and bloomy-rind cheeses at New Year’s because they go so well with Champagne. Stilton, although produced year-round, is a winter cheese in the public mind because of its association with Christmas.   

Every artisanal cheese and every region has its own seasonal rhythms, so it’s hard to generalize about when each cheese is best. But you can think about it this way: When is the milk quality highest, and how long does the cheese age? Then do the math. A young goat cheese will likely be most sublime in late spring, while a two-month-old Taleggio should be divine in early fall. Don’t underestimate the benefits of marketing seasonal cheeses. “It’s a great opportunity to give people more depth,” says Jones. “It gives customers another way to connect with their food, so we kind of celebrate it when a cheese goes away and comes back.”  

Janet Fletcher is a staff writer for the San Francisco Chronicle and author of The Cheese Course.