Gourmet Imports

A couple of Steves tasting Everton from ❤️ These beautiful wheels, made by the late Matthew Brichford, are currently being aged by Keith at , as we work to help Leslie clear out the aging room. Steve Jones and Steve Grandjean stopped by last week to touch and taste, and reported that these wheels of Everton are pineappley and amazing. Once this cheese is gone, it will be gone forever, so if you can, now is the time to throw your support behind this crucial raw milk American alpine-style cheese.

Bay Area! We’re expanding & hiring for various roles! Contact [email protected]

Our team did a little batch selection for Reverie and Cornerstone from the incredible . There’s just nothing better than tasting wonderful cheese made by wonderful people! Have you tried the Parish Hill cheeses yet?

Enjoyed some Pleasant Ridge Reserve and Mitica Serrano Ham at Golden Sardine in SF this week. Couldn’t ask for a more lovely moment!

Every week Alex leads our whole team in a cheese tasting here at the warehouse. We call it QC, but it’s more of an educational deep dive into specific batches of cheese. This is one of the reasons we’re always so psyched to answer your cheese questions. Need to know just exactly how soft that little softy is? Wondering if it’s sweet and mellow or tart and tangy? We can tell you!

Meet Caitlin, our Customer Relations Manager! Caitlin has been with Gourmet Imports since 2018 and supports and oversees the Customer Relations team.
 
She has two dogs, Dash (aka Sir Dashington) & Otto (aka Otto Bot or Potto). Prior to GI, she taught English in China, and lived in New Zealand for over 2 years hiking and car camping her way through the country. She loves the outdoors and all things food! As a kid, she was obsessed with dalmatians and had dalmatian sunglasses, binders, notebooks, sheets, towels – you name it, she probably owned it in dalmatian.
 
As the CR Manager, Caitlin enters, checks, and confirms daily orders and invoices, and works with the driving team on daily routes. Essentially her role is to ensure everything customer based runs smoothly. Caitlin thinks of her GI coworkers as her second family and loves getting to share stories and laugh with them.
 
If Caitlin’s ever helped you with an order or anything else, give her a shout out in the comments! We’re lucky to have her on the team!

Have you tried Blake Hill Preserves yet? Owners Vicky and Joe run their family jam business out of Windsor, Vermont. They use great fresh ingredients, and make these jams for us pretty much to order. We stock about 6+ varieties of their jam on the regular, and every one of them is 💋👌
 
Blake Hill Preserves began in 2009 when one of Vicky and Joe’s friends snuck a jar of their homemade jam into Grafton’s Village Store. The shop immediately placed an order, and a jam business began! Now, 15 years and MANY well-deserved awards later, this jam is some of the best you can get.

Hornbacher is back and tasting amazing! This alpine style cheese has a dense, fudgy texture, with a few crunchy tyrosine crystals scattered throughout. It’s the epitome of sweet and savory nuttiness, with flavors of buttered baked potato skin, caramelized onions, toasted walnuts, and roasted meats. It’s made by cheesemaker Michael Spycher (pictured above) at Bergkäserei Fritzenhaus in Sumiswald, Switzerland. We are loving this cheese right now and we know you will too!

🚨PROMO ALERT! Feta Voras precut 7 oz blocks are on special for the entire month of May!

Feta Voras is a PDO Greek Feta that’s made with more than 98% sheep milk and just the teeny tiniest bit of goat milk added into the mix. Why the tiny bit of goat milk? Sheep can be a suspicious bunch and don’t always want to follow the lead of a human – but they will follow a goat! Goats follow instructions a lot better than sheep, so these shepherds have added one goat to every herd of sheep. The goat follows the rules, and the sheep follow the goat! 🐐🐑🐑🐑

Feta Voras is lactic, ye**ty, and clean with notes of green olive, lemon, and grapefruit. It really is the perfect everyday feta. And now’s your chance to try it at a discount!

Had a blast at Maker’s Night! It was great to see so many of you! 🧀🧀🧀

We’ll be at Liquid City Maker’s Night this Saturday repping some of our awesome American cheesemakers! Saturday is the industry event for chefs, restaurants, retailers, wine bars, etc. Come hang with cool people, get inspired, and taste some phenomenal product! It’s free! Just RSVP - link in bio.

It’s (almost) too late. Only a few tickets left for our upcoming workshop with ZingTrain! Don’t miss out on what is sure to be a great event. Tickets in our Bio or at Eventbrite: https://tinyurl.com/zingermansxgi2024

Started in the early 20th century out of Italy in the surrounding agricultural land of Vercelli called the “grange”, the Perinotti family has been cultivating rice with a focus on quality and low environmental impact. With their attention to preserving the environment they helped save the native Grey Heron of the surrounding area, hence their name gliAironi (“The Herons”).

Not only is gliAironi striving to make an environmental impart, but also an innovative one. gliAironi is the only rice on the market that allows them to retain the nutrient filled rice “germ” which also allows for consistency through the cooking process.

If you’re looking for a Carnaroli rice for your next risotto, look no further than gliAironi.

P.S. There might be some gluten free cookies coming soon 😁🍪

Resident Cheese Ambassador and street taco aficionado, Steve Jones (aka Dr Jones & Joneski) shares his 🧀 journey on the latest episode of by and his storytelling prowess does not disappoint ✨ Link in bio ✨

We want to welcome our newest team member to the family!! Ryan Vesper has been a working chef for over 16 years, working at some amazing places like Rossoblu, Superba Food and Bread, Lukshon, and Water Grill.

Now Ryan is our new product ambassador, helping spread the hard work of our producing partners to all of our chefs and partners in LA, San Diego, and Las Vegas.
The passion Ryan has for products is unrivaled, and we knew he would fit right in. Sure enough in no time at all, Ryan is out there telling the stories of the amazing people we work with.
Be on the lookout for him, coming into a kitchen near you with some goodies! When you see him, ask him about his travels around the world. A little known fact about Ryan is that he has spent YEARS traveling and backpacking through almost every pet of the globe! He has some stories to share!
Welcome to the family Ryan! We are so thrilled to have you representing all of us!!

Be sure to get your 4th of July weekend orders in before next Thursday!🎇

Bonde du Poitou- a French pasteurized goat's milk cheese from the Loire Valley. The paste is firm at the center and gets softer closer to the rind. Flavors bounce from creamy and lactic in the paste, to ye**ty and barnyard-y at the geotrichum rind. As it ages, the flavors continue to unfold into more of a cave-y, wet earth vibe. These half-ish pound wheels are made from pasteurized goat's milk and animal rennet, and aged about 1-2 months by Mons Fromager.

Fresh in from Normandy- Rodolphe le Meunier Camembert! These 8oz wheels come from the same genius masterminds behind Beurre de Baratte. Made using Heritage Normande breed cow's milk🐄 The paste tastes of steamed cauliflower with hints of mushrooms in the bloomy rind.

This Stilton starts its life at Colston Bassett Dairy in Nottinghamshire, England. Made in a painstaking way entirely by hand, this is perfect cheese made exclusively for and further perfected by the wizards of Neal's Yard Dairy before being shipped to us. Truly exceptional in every way, this cheese is a full experience from the buttery and rich paste striped with the kindest blue veins all the way to the toasted beefiness of the crusty rind.

Raw milk, cream enriched alpine style cheese from world champion cheesemaker Michael Spycher. If you don’t like this cheese, you likely hate cheese!😝 Hornbacher tastes like a fully loaded baked potato with the skin on – creamy, porcine, allium-y with enough savory salty earthy to make it a full meal. This is what Swiss cheese dreams are made of!

Rouleau Fumé may look like a simple chèvre but it's packing a secret ingredient. These 2021 World Cheese Award Super Gold winners are cold smoked with beech wood before building the ash and geotrichum rinds. The end result is a savory, almost BBQ chip like flavor with a creamy texture. Imagine the Rouleau, roasted corn, pickled red onions and fried matchstick potatoes on a bed of greens dressed in a watermelon vinaigrette 😍

Make sure to get your orders in before the 3 day weekend! ☀️

Salva Cremasco was traditionally produced to keep excess milk from making butter from spoiling. The wheel's unique cube shape is matched by it's unique texture. Beneath it's natural rind sits a defined breakdown between the creamy edge and the dense, almost chalky center. The flavors follow the ripeness- notes of mushrooms and earthiness near the edge, while the center is more tact and lactic with mineral notes.

Looking to join a team specializing in gourmet foods? We've got just the thing for you! The position is full-time Monday-Friday and solely warehouse based. Send your resume over to [email protected]!

This sweet and easy blue from Arturo Chiriboga tastes like blue cheese butter. Released exactly at 60 days, this is the youngest raw milk blue cheese we’ve ever seen. Each wheel is brined as a full wheel and pierced shortly before it leaves the facility. This brindless beaut has a dense, creamy texture and is a mild adaption of its French inspiration- Roquefort.

For those looking for a mild spice level, let us introduce you to Red Table's “Minnesota spice.” Salbando & Salbando Grande from is the perfect spicy, but not too spicy salami. Made in the style of Italian Sopressata, the Salbando is spiced with black pepper, red pepper, garlic, and red wine in beef casing. Red Table works only with small, sustainable farms in Minneapolis that are committed to promoting the welfare of their heritage breeds.

Meet Mario- he's helping the drivers pull orders, receiving deliveries, packing outgoing shipments, breaking down pallets of product, basically pulling the strings behind the scenes. If you're ordering cuts of cheese, thank this guy! He's the one cutting down those 80+ lb wheels into more manageable pieces. He was our first hire getting the crew back together and has become a key component in keeping the warehouse rolling smoothly! Meet Mario- he's helping the drivers pull orders, receiving deliveries, packing outgoing shipments, breaking down pallets of product, basically pulling the strings behind the scenes. If you're ordering cuts of cheese, thank this guy! He's the one cutting down those 80+ lb wheels into more managle pieces. He was our first hire getting the crew back together and has become a key component in keeping the warehouse rolling smoothly!

The Jacobs and Brichford unsung heroine! Briana is a raw milk, 100% grass fed herd cheese made in the style of a Fontina Val D’aosta. The complex flavor of roasted meats, hints of fresh fruit, and a healthy dose of farmy-barny funk is developed over a minimum aging of 90 days. The young age means it maintains a dense, semi-hard texture. She is cheese plate ready but is also insanely meltable and shines cooked in anything from an omelet to nachos.

King's Ransom👑 a Bier Kase style cheese made by Master Cheesemaker & aged by . This dreamy, cow milk melter is washed in Vermonter cider and aged for a minimum of 3 months. The semi-soft paste has a mellow rind and a rich, tangy, and savory paste. 🧀

Sofia is back💫 missed dearly last week, these tart youngsters arrived in house yesterday!