Workers’ cheerful chitchat mimics the chirp of birds greeting a new day at Cowhorn Vineyard & Garden.

Wielding long-handled knives overhead, the three men shear off swaths of Viognier vines, which fall unheeded onto the weeds between rows. This midsummer manicure sheds more sunlight on the fruit, encouraging it to ripen.

A few rows away, pickers’ pace and purpose couldn’t be more different. Sifting through Syrah grapes for perfectly-formed leaves, three employees of Rogue Creamery clip the stem close to each specimen and slip it for safekeeping into a mesh bag slung over one shoulder. Only leaves of a specific size with the finest texture are chosen to wrap the Creamery’s famed Rogue River Blue cheese.

“We really wanted an edible leaf that was representative of this area,” says David Gremmels, the Creamery’s co-owner.

Fine blue cheeses similarly-crafted in the Old World style usually are cloaked in chestnut leaves, says Gremmels. To develop a distinctive American cheese, Gremmels and Creamery co-owner Cary Bryant stayed close to home.

The Rogue Valley’s vigorous namesake river, widespread pear orchards and carefully-tended vineyards all commingle their essence in a uniquely fine cheese. Rogue River Blue won the title of Best Blue Cheese at the London World Cheese Awards in 2003, less than a year after Gremmels and Bryant acquired the Creamery, a Southern Oregon fixture since the 1930s.

“We had some interesting experiments along the way,” says Gremmels, explaining how he sampled a variety of fresh grape leaves, including Chardonnay, Zinfandel, Viognier and Riesling, in search of the perfect complement to blue cheese.

“Some of the leaves were just too bright, too fruity, too forward and also just had too much texture,” he says. “The Syrah, it just stood out differently.”

After identifying the ideal grape variety, Gremmels and Bryant needed a sympathetic supplier. For nearly a decade, Carpenter Hill Vineyard in southwest Medford provided hundreds of thousands of Syrah leaves for the Creamery’s flagship cheese. The harvest rose in status from a work party to special event for the Creamery’s employees, customers, admirers and collaborators.

“It takes a community to make that cheese,” says Gremmels.

Although Carpenter Hill was certified Salmon-Safe, and its Syrah is a “star,” the Creamery had a loftier goal for Rogue River Blue and its entire catalog of cheeses. Pursuit of organic certification began with the Creamery’s milk, furnished by its own dairy since February after three years of installing state-of-the-art infrastructure at the 75-acre Grants Pass property.

“It’s exciting to be moving in this direction,” says Gremmels.

It’s a trail that Bill and Barbara Steele blazed more than a decade ago in the Applegate Valley, taking the additional step beyond organic to certify their Cowhorn wine estate as biodynamic. The nonprofit organization Demeter USA, headquartered in Philomath, bestows biodynamic status on vineyards and other farming operations that adopt what its members believe to be the most stringent standards for environmental stewardship. That commitment by Cowhorn confirmed it as the Creamery’s singular source of grape leaves for Rogue River Blue.

“It’s inspiring,” says Gremmels.

Essentially a form of environmental homeopathy, biodynamic principles are thought to regenerate land. Cowhorn co-owner Barbara Steele has described it as finding the “terroir” in one’s property. The French term, popularized by the wine industry, denotes the effect of geography, climate, soil and growing conditions on a wine’s character.

It’s a notion that resonates with Gremmels and Bryant, who cite the influence of Rogue Valley terroir on their cheeses, most notably Rogue River Blue.

“That bacteria is very much connected to our region,” says Gremmels. “It’s a characteristic of the Rogue Valley that cannot be duplicated.”

The cheese’s regional Brevibacterium culture, he says, transforms high-butterfat milk from cows that graze native pasture irrigated by the Rogue River into a food whose multifaceted flavor is described using much of the lexicon for wine-tasting. Notes of blackberry, vanilla, chocolate and hazelnut pervade Rogue River Blue, says Gremmels.

Soaked in pear brandy, grape leaves keep the cheese’s savory, signature rind—likened to bacon—intact, says Gremmels. A plastic or foil package, by contrast, would adhere and waste the wheel’s entirely edible, outermost surface, he adds.

Each 5-pound round of Rogue River Blue requires five to eight grape leaves, says Brian Moss, the Creamery’s warehouse and packaging manager. To outfit 5,000 wheels, pickers glean 35,000 leaves, preferably larger than a human hand, symmetrical and prominently veined.

“Bill’s leaves in particular just have really good form,” says Moss, holding up a particularly well-proportioned example.

Grape leaves are cleaned and processed the same day they are picked and put to soak for up to a year in pear brandy. Leaves harvested in 2015 will emerge from their brandy bath to dress 2016’s cheeses.

Salted, brined, perforated to promote veining and flipped every day for a month, the cheeses themselves age for more than a year. Finally, they are tasted, graded and, if judged the créme de la créme, arrayed in the “purified” grape leaves, tied up with raffia bows.

“We do hand-wrap it,” says Moss. “Every batch of cheese we make is unique.”

The hand-crafted nature of Rogue River Blue ensures its sale months in advance of the annual, worldwide release at the autumnal equinox. This year, the auspicious astronomical event falls on September 23.

Evoking a taste of the Rogue Valley, Rogue River Blue can be widely tasted at locations around the region. Ample portions are allocated to food co-ops, fine grocers, and the Creamery’s own Central Point cheese shop.

From Southern Oregon Wine Scene – Fall Winter 2015.