LONGMONT, Colo. — With its cheese plant just opened two months ago, Colorado Caprine LLC is one of the newest artisan goat cheese companies in the United States.

The company produces several handcrafted goat’s milk cheeses and is focusing on producing cheeses that aren’t readily available in a market where interest in goat’s milk cheese is growing. In particular, Colorado Caprine is focusing on producing hard cheeses like its Teton Tomme, which the company’s website describes as a “full-bodied goat cheese with a rustic brown and white rind bearing a mild mushroom scent.” The company says the cheese can be compared with a Tomme de Chèvre or a Tomme de Montage from the Haute-Savoie region of France.

The French influence on this and Colorado Caprine’s other cheeses is the result of the training which owner and cheesemaker Craig Mullenax received last year.

Mullenax, a real estate executive who on the side ran a small Angus operation, decided to swap the Angus for goats and investigate the world of cheesemaking. In the past two years, he has gone from knowing little about goats to owning 250 of them as well as becoming a cheesemaker who owns a small, state-of-the art cheesemaking plant.

Switching from a couple dozen beef cattle to goats was a decision made because of the drought conditions parts of Colorado have been experiencing, Mullenax says. The goats’ forage needs seemed a better fit for the land, he says.

Once that decision was made, Mullenax dove headlong into cheesemaking, attending Cal Poly’s cheesemaking short course. He then attended a French university which specializes in the production of goat’s milk cheeses, goat husbandry and cheese plant management and completed a cheesemaking apprenticeship near Lyon, France.

Back at home, Mullenax has built a plant which includes a milking parlor, pasteurization and cheesemake equipment and room for aging. He also hired another cheese industry novice, Frank Godines, his right-hand man and marketing manager. Godines, a veteran who applied for a position within Mullenax’s real estate business, never imagined he would be in the goat cheese business. After 23 years in the military and subsequent training in information technology, Mullenax found Godines to be overqualified for the position that he was applying for within the real estate business. Instead, Mullenax offered him the job of helping him get Colorado Caprine started.

While it was something he never imagined doing, Godines says he couldn’t let the opportunity pass by.

“It’s been satisfying seeing this operation get started from the ground up,” Godines says.

And get started it has. Presently, the company is making five cheeses: the aforementioned Teton Tomme, as well as Four Corners Round, Foothills Bleu, Caprine Blanc and Columbine Cup.

Godines says the cheeses have the attributes of high-quality, handcrafted European-style cheese with a contemporary Colorado flair. The cheeses are generally mild in their “goatiness,” Godines says. One of the biggest challenges the company has had to overcome in marketing, particularly to local consumers, is overcoming stereotypes they have of goat’s milk cheese, he says.

That is happening, though, with products like Four Corners Round, a washed-rind cheese that the company describes as being a cross between a Muenster and the French Reblochon cheese with a “smooth and supple interior covered by a bright saffron-yellow exterior.”

Also gaining in popularity is Foothills Bleu, a Blue cheese with a moist interior streaked with blue-green veins. It’s aged for a rich flavor and spicy aroma, but the company says it’s not as spicy as Bleu d’Auvergne yet not as mild as Bleu de Vercour. And Godines, who admits to never having been a fan of Blue cheese, says he is a fan of this cheese, noting that it doesn’t have the “abuse of the senses” that he’s experienced with other Blues in the past.

The company also offers Caprine Blanc, a soft-ripened and bloomy-rind cheese reminiscent of a St. Felicien or a St. Marcellin. It is creamy and smooth in the interior and covered by white/bluish flora. And finally, there is Columbine Cup, another Colorado Caprine original, with a consistency that can best be likened to that of yogurt though it still is made with cheese cultures. The cup is available with a strawberry preserve topping or plain, and it is being positioned toward the health-conscious snack market. Colorado Caprine currently is filing for a patent for its Columbine Cup.

With French-style hard cheeses as well as the complementary soft cheeses that have a bit of a different twist compared to other U.S. goat’s milk cheese producers, Mullenax hopes to carve for Colorado Caprine its own market niche without taking away from others.

“Our cheeses will complement what’s already existing out there,” Mullenax says. “I think there’s already good quality goat cheese out there.”

The biggest challenge right now is letting people know about the cheese.

“We’re new and we need to let people know we are here,” Godines says.

With just a couple of months’ production under their belts, there hasn’t been a lot of opportunity to have people try the product. But a Denver-area farmer’s market has proven to be the source of a consumer base willing to try new artisan cheeses — and pay the per-pound price that typically accompanies such a cheese. In addition, Mullenax and Godines are making contacts around the country. The company’s cheese already is available in various pockets throughout the nation, and Colorado Caprine also is in discussions with Whole Foods. Mullenax and Godines are focusing on upscale restaurants and retailers.

The cheese’s “coming out party” will be Oct. 13 in Chicago at the Cheese Revolution III, an event hosted by Great American Cheese Collection, which has picked up Colorado Caprine’s cheese. Held in the Wyndham Chicago’s grand ballroom, the event will feature 20 chefs paired with 20 cheesemakers — including Mullenax — to create 20 dishes showcasing some of America’s best cheeses. The event will include wine pairings and tastings of more than 150 artisan cheeses from across the country.

Mullenax and Godines hope that events such as these, as well as their new website where people will be able to order cheese, will help generate increasing levels of demand. The company hopes eventually to expand; presently 70 goats are being milked but there is room for more. Currently, Mullenax and his two herdsmen are working on getting the goats’ breeding schedules adjusted so that there will be three kidding seasons throughout the year and a consistent supply of milk to meet cheese demand. Mullenax also notes that he has invested heavily in genetics so that the company will have the most efficient goats, representing several breeds, to produce the best type of milk possible for cheesemaking.

However, Mullenax also is mindful of becoming too big.

“We don’t want to change the character of the farmstead process,” he says, adding that he is not interested in making mass-produced cheese and would rather run two smaller dairy goat operations than one extremely large one. In that way, the goats receive the individual attention they need, he says.

Starting the business has been time-consuming and at times challenging, but also has been very rewarding, Mullenax says. Eventually, he hopes to hire another cheesemaker, but right now cheesemaking is his focus and his real estate business gets attention from about 10 p.m. to midnight, he says.

“It’s intense work and takes the vast majority of every day,” Godines adds. “We’re exceptionally busy, but it’s very satisfying.”

CMN