When the Giacomini family decided a decade ago to reorient their West Marin dairy from fluid milk to cheese, they settled on a single product — Point Reyes Original Blue — and poured their energies into it. Now, with their blue cheese a commercial success, they have entered phase two.
Point Reyes Toma, introduced this year, is only the second cheese in their line. Jill Giacomini Basch, one of the three sisters who run Point Reyes Farmstead Cheese, says the Toma is intended as a simple table cheese for people who don't care for blues.
"We didn't want a finicky cheese. We didn't want a precious cheese," says Basch, describing the discussions the family entered into when a new cheesemaker, Kuba Hemmerling, joined the company last year. Hemmerling had some experience making hard cheeses in the Gouda style, so the R&D for Point Reyes cheese No. 2 began to head in that direction.
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