Meet a Godmother of American Goat Cheese

Judy Schad didn’t set out to become one of America’s foremost cheesemakers when she moved to a dilapidated southern Indiana farm with her husband and three young kids in 1976. But after a neighbor brought a lone goat by, it was only a matter of time before the Schad family was milking 500 goats and making one of the country’s first marks on the world of American goat cheese. 

“Everyone else was joining the country club,” says Schad of her move to a burnt-out and overgrown 80-acre farm among 300-year-old oak trees on the limestone hills just north of Louisville. “We got a goat.”

For a former high school English teacher working on her PhD in Renaissance Literature while teaching at the University of Louisville, the move from one goat to 500 was gradual. And stepping into cheesemaking was part interest and part because, well, she was swimming in unwanted goat milk. “How this started for me is that I love to cook,” she says. “We had all this milk, and the kids wouldn’t drink it.”

So, Schad, now 82, learned how to make cheese. She launched Capriole Goat Cheese in 1988 and quickly formed friendships with other cheesemakers across the country using a similar artisanal process — Mary Keehn of Cypress Grove, Jennifer Bice of Redwood Hill Farm & Creamery, Paula Lambert of Mozzarella Co., and Allison Hooper of Vermont Creamery. “It was not much of anything,” she says. “It was nothing but a bunch of women with a handful of goats.”

The goats allowed for Schad to turn the farm kitchen hobby that she shared with family and friends into a real business, selling goat cheese across the country and taking home countless awards. Schad has served as vice president of the American Cheese Society, on the board of the American Dairy Goat Association, and is a recipient of the Women Chefs and Restaurateurs Outstanding in Her Field Award, and was made Maitre du Fromage from the Guilde Internationale des Fromagers — and developed new varieties of American goat cheese.

She created Old Kentucky Tomme for a special Kentucky Derby event. Buttery and rich with mild white mushroom overtones, the Tomme falls between an American Jack and a Tomme du Savoie. The rind darkens and becomes crusty with age as the flavor continues to develop with a lipase kick of sharp flavor and a texture like Fontina. Capriole still supplies cheeses for Churchill Downs (Schad is a lifelong fan of the race and was in attendance when Secretariat won in 1973).

Getting into goat cheese

As the business started, the Schads were hauling 70 gallons of milk to nearby Huber’s Orchard and Winery to use their facility to make cheese, but by 1992 they’d even outgrown that arrangement. So, they built their own cheesemaking facility on the farm.

It was all a bit “wild west” in the world of cheesemaking at that time. Schad says nobody wanted to buy local, as the rage was anything food-related coming from France, and goat cheese certainly wasn’t vogue. The family kept at it — Larry milked goats before and after his work as a lawyer — and they sold cheese around the region.

Schad didn’t slow. She took a trip to France with Keehn to learn the French process of cheesemaking, which inspired Capriole’s Wabash Cannonball variety and her cheesemaking process.

A combination of factors soon propelled Capriole onto the national stage. “There were so few of us experimenting with artisan cheeses,” she says. “Almost all were goat cheeses and a few sheep. Cow milk cheeses already had a market, so in a way we were the darlings for specialty retail and signature restaurants, as well as food writers.” At a visit to an American Institute of Food & Wine event in Chicago, she offered samples of the cheese to the public, everyone from folks on the street to Julia Child. “That was our launch into a wider market,” she says.

While the 1990s offered limited demand for domestic cheeses — especially specialty cheese from southern Indiana — the dedication paid off, and demand grew so much that by 2012 the family sold the 500-goat herd to focus solely on making cheese. Capriole had stretched to the East Coast and California as major markets and just recently has seen sustained growth in the American South. 

How goat cheese is made

Now, the farm buys milk from nearly half a dozen local Amish farmers, filling the site’s 1,200-gallon tank, Sam Schad, Judy’s grandson and the farm’s general manager, says. The milk gets moved into a 400-gallon pasteurizer heated with steam to 145°F for 35 minutes before being hand-ladled into a vat in 36-pound increments for mixing with ingredients and letting the milk “set” overnight at 75°F. 

“Everything we do is low and slow,” Sam says. The “very laborious” method undergoes the French process the entire way, with the French technique unique to the creamery including hand-ladling, the use of vegetable ash, and the mix of the Geotrichum candidum mold on ripened cheeses and the Penicillium candidum mold on some aged varieties.

Judy admits that hand-ladling isn’t the most efficient method for handling the curd, “but certainly the best for maintaining texture,” the calling card of goat cheese.

Capriole’s is held in the ripening cage for up to seven days, depending on the variety and then sent to the different mold-specific drying and aging rooms including one Geotrichum room set to 58°F and another for aging cheeses for three to four months at 42°F.

The rind room is home to one of the funkiest smells on the farm, where the wash gets put on the rind. “You’re paying for the rank,” Sam says of the unique flavors imparted on the Capriole cheeses thanks to the rind room’s mold-focused longevity.

Goat cheese varieties

Capriole produces roughly 11 cheeses, a mix of fresh, ripened, and aged that rotates seasonally.

The Fresh Chevre was the first made and is still popular regionally. Shaped into a Buche (log), the texture sets it apart, and the taste “goes with everything,” Judy says. The Tea Rose, named after a top-producing goat now depicted on the farm’s label, features a fresh chevre with a dusting of fennel pollen and herbs with aromatic flower petals. It is one of the most popular cheeses for the farm. The chevre is meant to pair with floral white wines and flowery teas.

Another distinct fresh goat cheese is O’Banon, which is wrapped in bourbon-soaked chestnut leaves to create a mix of tart fruit and mild tannic notes.

Flavoring the curds was the next step in the Capriole evolution and two of the ripened varieties — Sofia, named after friend and cheese lover Sofia Solomon, and Piper’s Pyramide, named after Judy’s red-haired granddaughter and now Capriole marketing director — are the most popular nationwide. 

The ripened Sofia was one of the first created by Judy in the early 1990s. Sofia, less than two weeks old, is shipped — Capriole’s farmer-made wooden crates for delivery are popular in the industry — as soon as the delicate cheese forms a rind marbled with vegetable ash that has citrus and cream flavors. In keeping with France’s Loire Valley traditions, Sofia becomes denser and creamier for up to seven weeks from production. It is one of the cheeses featuring a mold inspired by Judy’s trip to France. Piper’s Pyramide comes laced with a touch of smoked paprika for a singular flavor. Another ripened variety, Flora, named after Judy’s grandmother, is one of the newest and a bloomy rind that intensifies in flavor as it ages.

A distinct ripened cheese from Capriole is the Wabash Cannonball, aged 10 days to form a wrinkly exterior on the spherical product. While young, there’s still a complexity to the taste and it can last up to four weeks.

Judy wanted to create something truly distinct in the world of American goat cheese. She pulled it off with Old Kentucky Tomme, one of the first aged goat cheeses in the U.S. and one of the farm’s first unique artisan cheeses. When looking to craft an American flavor, Judy says she was inspired by Monterey Jack, arguably the only American-born cheese in the market.

The Julianna, popular nationwide and named after an intern experimenting on the farm, is an experimental version of the Old Kentucky Tomme with a nuttier and firmer feel like a Tomme du Savoie while featuring a coating of Herbes de Provence, calendula petals, and safflower petals for a creative aromatic finish.

Named for a nearby Franciscan retreat, Mont St. Francis was first made in 1994 when America wasn’t known for washed-rind cheeses. The stinky cheese is washed in His Dark Materials stout from Louisville’s Monnik Beer Company and aged a minimum of three months (up to a year) to help build a funky flavor with a smoky finish. The semi-firm, extra-fine feel offers a singular texture for a goat cheese.

Judy still lives on the farm and loves the balance of trying new creations and enjoying her favorites. You can taste them in salads and on charcuterie boards at the Kentucky Derby and at farmers markets in the Louisville region.