POINT REYES STATION, Calif. — Bob Giacomini has been milking Holsteins in California since 1959 and has successfully weathered the price swings and other ups and downs dairying entails.

But five years ago, with the prospect of an eventual retirement beginning to loom more closely, Giacomini and his wife, Dean, began to consider what they should do with their family's business.

"The kids weren't interested in the cows, but they didn't want us to get rid of the farm either," he says of his four adult daughters.

The solution?

"Two of our daughters had a marketing background, and we started to look into what it would take to make cheese," Giacomini says.

It wasn't a completely foreign idea for the family. Not only are the Giacomini daughters experienced in marketing, the Giacominis are a family of self-described "foodies."

"We love to cook, to eat, to travel for food," says Jill Giacomini Basch, who now handles marketing for the farmstead cheese business the family has named after their town: Point Reyes Farmstead Cheese Co.

• Getting started

When the family first started discussing what it would take to make cheese, they had several decisions to make — including the type of cheese they would produce.

They easily nixed any of the commodity varieties which are produced in ever-increasing amounts in California. And as California's specialty cheese business begins to grow, they also nixed a few specialty varieties already made in the state.

"What we didn't want to do is make the same kind of cheeses our neighbors were making. There already are boutique cheesemakers in the area," Giacomini says.

So the family began doing market research, asking chefs and upscale stores what they were having a difficult time finding.

They soon had their answer. Chefs were having difficulty finding high-end table blue cheese. In fact, there was none being made in the state.

It was the perfect product for a family of foodies.

"We knew whatever cheese we were to make had to have depth and versatility," Giacomini Basch says.

Blue, however, is a difficult cheese to make, and the Giacominis, though blue cheese lovers, knew they needed to know a lot more before delving into the business. They thus began doing even more research, consulting with Howard Morris at the University of Minnesota who trained them in making cheese.

They also renovated the oldest barn on the ranch, making it their cheese plant.

In addition, they found an experienced blue cheesemaker, Monte McIntyre, to run the plant. A couple of months before Point Reyes Farmstead Cheese's start-up in August 2000, McIntyre and his wife, Beth, were on board with the company, he as the cheesemaker and she as the head of the packaging room. This left the Giacomini daughters to do what they know best — market their product.

• Telling their story

Three of the four Giacomini daughters — Karen, Lynn and Jill — are involved in the business on the marketing side. Daughter Diana is in banking and her father says, "we can't afford her." With a laugh, Giacomini Basch says Diana is "the sane one" who can provide a different perspective.

The company sold its first cheese a little more than a year ago after aging it six months, and the early weeks were spent marketing the cheese in the family's hometown and surrounding region where the going was relatively easy.

"We're so fortunate to live in one of the culinary epicenters of the world," Giacomini Basch says of nearby San Francisco and the surrounding area.

"Right here close to home, everybody knew us, knew the name of the town," Giacomini says. "Needless to say, we get away from the area, no one knows our name and we're just another blue cheese."

Use of the company's blue, which the Giacominis describe as creamier and more like French-style blue than many cheeses in the United States, has been popular in high-end restaurants. This has given the company a great start, Giacomini Basch says.

"It gives us credibility when they give their stamp of approval," she says.

After selling cheese in San Francisco and other parts of northern California, the company's second market was New York. This move Giacomini Basch attributes to coincidence and good fortune since one of Point Reyes' distributors works for a parent company out of New Jersey. That inroad has given the company a good presence in upscale New York restaurants in a short period of time.

The Giacomini sisters continue to travel up and down the West Coast now, expanding their market. They also travel to major metropolitan areas including Chicago, Atlanta and Boston.

"Our No. 1 belief in terms of getting people to buy the cheese is that they need to taste it," Giacomini Basch says of the company's heavy sampling program with potential buyers and consumers. "The proof is in the quality of the product."

"Getting it into the cheese case doesn't do it — you have to get it in the consumers' mouth," her father adds.

Point Reyes has distributors in several major urban areas, but the Giacominis also believe they need to be the ones spreading the word about their product.

"It works best if they hear the story from one of us," Giacomini Basch says. "And it's great for us to have one-on-one contact to get feedback."

While the company is doing well and has made a great deal of progress during the short time it's been in business, the family feels they still have a long way to go.

"We're barely touching the tip of the iceberg," Giacomini says. "We have to get out and introduce ourselves and our cheese across the country."

When they're out telling their story, one of the things that makes Point Reyes Original Blue stand out is that it is a farmstead cheese.

Very little blue cheese in the United States is actually made by the same people who milk the cows. This gives the company an advantage in that it controls its milk supply which in turn makes it much easier to control the quality of the cheese, they say. The family's focus on milk quality goes all of the way to the milk can logo affixed to the silver foil-wrapped cheese.

• Balancing act

Starting up the cheese business has been a lot of work for the family. Giacomini, who's now 64, says that he has plenty do before he retires.

"You get to a point in life where you need a new challenge. Believe me, we have a new challenge," he says with a chuckle.

He also gives credit to his daughters who balance the demands of the business with their family lives and to his wife who manages the finances.

While it can be difficult at times, "it's a very exciting new part of our life," he adds.

Cows still remain an important part of the business, but Giacomini has been able to slow down a bit, cutting the herd size from 500 to 280 cows milked twice daily. Cheese is made two days a week, with the rest of the milk still being sold to a co-op. There is plenty of room to expand production beyond the current 500 6 1/2-pound wheels a week, and the Giacominis hope to do just that as they continue to make inroads into the specialty cheese market.

"We're picking up a lot of customers little by little," Giacomini says.

CMN