High Lawn Farm To Host 9th Annual Massachusetts Cheese Festival

Eating cheese is easy (too easy, sometimes), but “cheese is so much work to make,” says Amye Gulezian, the specialty foods operations manager at High Lawn Farm in Lee, Massachusetts. She’s on the board of the Massachusetts Cheese Guild, which is holding its ninth annual Massachusetts Cheese Festival on Saturday, September 21 at High Lawn Farm. It’s a tasty celebration of the state’s premier cheeses and championing of the small, often family-run artisanal cheese ventures that the Guild supports.

“This is an opportunity to support local producers and come out and buy their products right from them,” Gulezian says. Festival goers can sample and purchase handcrafted cheeses plus products from local charcuteries, wine, beer and cider producers, and specialty foods vendors. All of that is included in the ticket price ($30). For an additional charge, there will be three wine-and-cheese pairing sessions, and moderated panelist sessions. Cheese makers will offer in-depth introductions to cheese making, the challenges the makers face, and the intricacies of the process, so that the general public can better understand and appreciate artisanal cheese.  

As the Guild came back from the pandemic, members thought about the future of the festival and what it would look like. “We’re small teams and busy people, so it’s hard to get together for one thing like this. Coming back, we wanted it to be meaningful,” says Gulezian. Prior to the pandemic, the Cheese Festival had been held in the Armory in Springfield — not the most appetizing venue for a savory celebration.

Last year, the Guild relocated the festival to High Lawn Farm. It was a relatively small but successful gathering. People came from all over — Boston, central Massachusetts, New York, and  High Lawn loves hosting it.

Those who have visited High Lawn Farm, a family-run dairy for more than 100 years, will agree with Guild members that it’s hard to imagine any location more suitable for a cheese festival, beginning with that jaw-dropping view of valley and cows that reveals itself before the turn onto Summer Street. A visit includes an up-close-and-personal interaction with the friendly Jersey cows (fun fact: who sleep on waterbeds), and shopping at the store located under the medieval-style tower that rises above the grazing fields.

The friendly Jersey cows at High Lawn Farm

One of High Lawn Farm’s cheeses that Gulezian is proudest of is Siegfried’s Pride, an aged (for 18-24 months) cheese rubbed with an herb-infused brandy. She was initially so impressed with it, it’s actually one of the reasons she took the job. “We worked hard on the recipe the last two years,” she says. It was the 2024 American Cheese Society second-place winner in its category. (Point of interest: The cheese is named after one of the farm’s award-winning cows, Siegfried's Pride, a foundational member of the High Lawn Farm herd; many of her grand and great-great grandaughters are still in the herd today. Don't you want to meet them now?)

Gulezian, who was on the road delivering milk when we caught up with her (“we’re a small dairy — we do a little bit of everything”), stressed the importance of keeping artisanal cheese makers in business. There are fewer producers each year. In 2019, she says, Massachusetts counted over 25 cheesemakers. Now there are 13. Ticket proceeds at the festival help the Guild (one of the oldest, continuously running associations in the country) support the producers. For most of us, the prospect of sampling cheese is enough to get us there, but take a look though a section of the Guild’s website devoted to bios of the makers: their commitment to their craft might be added incentive to meet these artisans.

And since High Lawn Farm is in the neighborhood, so to speak, we’ll include a little footnote that Gulezian happened to drop in the conversation. 1. Its fall seasonal ice cream flavors will be launching soon; and 2. Grilled cheese has been added to the menu at the farm store (open daily). ‘Nuff said.