Galway Cheese Tour and Tasting by an Artisan Cheesemaker

Meet Teresa, a fun and passionate artisanal cheesemaker in Galway. Teresa and her family have been farming near the village of Abbey, in Co. Galway since 1820. They converted their Kylemore House farm into a dairy enterprise in the 1960s where they run a herd of grass-fed Friesian Holstein cows to this day that supplies Arrabawn, a nationwide Irish milk distributor. Teresa has lived all over the world but always wanted to return home to start a business on the family’s farm and developed a keen interest in cheese-making while she was in New Zealand. Working and living with the Maori farming community gave her great insight into how to develop a business in food production. When she came home for her usual two-week holiday in 2015, she decided to see if she could develop a cheese at the home farm and that two-week holiday became two years of studying cheese production and completing various mentoring and business courses, which has now come to fruition - with the building of a cheese production facility at the farm. She is excited to share her passion for her family farm, beautiful cattle, and the fabulous cheese they make with visitors to Ireland.

The rich, fertile grounds of the Slieve Aughty mountains are wonderful grazing grounds for the grass-fed cows that produce milk used in the making of her cheese. Enjoy a tasting of Alpine-styled creamy, buttery, nutty Appenezeller (a natural, washed rind cheese) made at the farm. The cheese will be paired with a fresh, home-baked, Irish soda bread and butter, local seasonal fruit, chutneys and a glass of wine. You are welcome to try fresh, unpasteurized milk straight from the cows or tea and coffee. You will conclude your cheese tour and tasting with a homemade seasonal fruit tart. Your cheese tour and tasting will last about two hours.