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New York Ewes

Author: Shoshana Goldberg
photograph by Mary Ellen Bartley
When Tom Clark decided to get into the sheepherding business, his three grown children—who had known their father as the shrewd president of an investment firm for most of their lives—thought he was crazy. “They couldn’t believe it!” laughs Clark. But he was serious. Inspired by summers spent tending sheep on his grandfather’s upstate New York farm, Clark looked into his options. “At first I thought I’d raise sheep for meat,” he recalls. “Then I realized that almost no one was raising sheep for their milk in this country.” Meanwhile, Americans were gobbling up imported sheep’s-milk cheeses like pecorino romano and roquefort. So Clark visited dairies in Europe, where sheep’s-milk cheese is a tradition centuries old—and in 1994 founded Old Chatham Sheepherding Company, with 500 acres in New York’s Hudson River Valley and a starter flock of 150 sheep.

Hotel Booking At first, Clark sold his milk to a creamery nearby, which used it in a buttery “camembert”. But Clark wasn’t satisfied to be a mere milkman, and soon he was making cheese at the creamery under the Old Chatham label. Last year he built a state-of-the-art facility of his own, and today Old Chatham—whose property now includes a small inn and an acclaimed restaurant—boasts 1,000 ewes, several award-winning cheeses, and the distinction of being the largest sheep dairy farm in the country. In addition to the camembert, Clark’s best-seller, there are nine other cheeses—among them a signature fresh sheep’s-milk cheese (right, in bowl and on cracker); a zesty, soft-ripened peppered pyramid (bottom left); and a mild shepherd’s wheel (center, halved).

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Travel Agency Much of Old Chatham’s success has to do with the fact that sheep’s milk is twice as rich as cow’s milk. The rest, says manager Ken Kleinpeter, is due to “great grass, the best sheep, and a staff that’s fanatical about cheese at every step”. Prices range from $5 to $55, depending on variety and size (888/SHEEP-60).

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