Happy February! As we continue our giveaways in honor of our Centennial as well as our appreciation to YOU, our consumers, this month's giveaway is valued at well OVER $400! The lucky winner will receive a Cheese Grotto Fresco, Dick Taylor Chocolates for your valentine (or yourself), and of course, some Rumiano Cheese! 

THE CHEESE GROTTO - Birchwood has been traditionally used in cheese preservation for hundreds of years. Its bark has been wrapped as a belt around soft cheeses for even ripening and added woodsy flavor, and has been made into barrels for the aging of Greek Feta.  It’s also been used during the smoking of Idiazabal cheese. Most importantly, birch has been used as shelves for aging in caves. Its tight surface is slower to absorb and release moisture, making it excellent for long-term storage. The finished birch featured in this model is sustainably made, and non-toxic. The finish on the birch makes it mold and stain resistant, both in the interior and exterior.

The Grotto Fresco has a smaller footprint of 7 inches by 9 inches with a height of 8 inches, making it the perfect size for the metropolitan cheese lover with a smaller refrigerator who loves entertaining on the weekends. Shelving heights accommodate just about any cheese.

It features a bio-based, non-toxic, anti-microbial floor made of linseed oil which helps naturally regulate any mold growth and the genuine leather tab makes for an easy grip on the sliding door.

The back panel is breathable, making for a perfect climate for simple, long-term storage of wedges and small wheels of cheese in the refrigerator.

DICK TAYLOR CHOCOLATE - With chocolate sourced from Belize, Madagascar, Guatemala, Fiji, Brazil and the Solomon Islands, Dick Taylor Chocolate is very unique!

“Deeply rooted in a background of woodworking and boat building, we have always loved working with our hands. The concept of craft has been a guiding principle in our lives from the beginning. After hearing about what was going on in the young and growing American craft chocolate movement, we were drawn to the common threads we saw in working with wood and crafting chocolate from bean. We became fascinated with a new challenge and loved the idea of reinventing the chocolate experience. In 2010, we bought some small-scale equipment and began making chocolate.

The most hands-on approach we could take was to start with the raw cacao. We are able to source the finest fairly-traded cache and perform all the steps in-house to turn the raw ingredients into delicious chocolate, all in our small factory in Eureka, California. This entire process takes approximately three weeks to complete but allows us to make some of the finest chocolate possible. We use organic cacao and organic cane sugar in our chocolate. By not cutting corners or taking shortcuts in our process, we are able to leave out vanilla, additional cocoa butter or other emulsifiers, in hopes of capturing and highlighting the subtle flavor nuances in the cacao we source from around the world. We hope you will get as much enjoyment eating our chocolate as we do making it.” - Adam Dick & Dustin Taylor