Laura Chenel

Laura Chenel (born c. 1948–1949) is an American cheesemaker from Sonoma, California, specializing in the production of goat cheese. Chenel's commercial creamery, Laura Chenel Chevre, sold over two million pounds of cheese annually when it was sold to the Rians Group in 2006. Career

Early career Starting in the mid 1970s, Chenel began assisting with daily operations at her parents' turkey ranch and nearby family restaurant in Sebastopol, California. While working on the ranch, Chenel converted an enclosed area near the restaurant into a shelter for her first goats and used their milk to produce yogurt and kefir.

After expanding her herd, Chenel approached the Redwood Empire Dairy Goat Association (REDGA) with a proposal to produce cheese from surplus milk. In collaboration with the association, she established a cooperative. She subsequently visited cheese retailers in San Francisco, Sacramento, and Berkeley to assess market requirements.

Making of the French-style American goat cheese A clerk at the Say Cheese store in San Francisco’s Cole Street introduced Chenel to fresh French cheese made from raw milk and coated in ash. Preferring the flavor of this goat cheese method, Chenel began looking for someone to teach her the process for making fresh French cheese. She enrolled at Sonoma State University to study the French language for a year. One of her professors, Adele Friedman, helped her write to Jean-Claude Le Jaouen, the head of L'Institut Technique de l'Élevage Ovin et Caprin (ITOVIC), Paris, and the author of The Fabrication of Farmstead Goat Cheese (1990). He told Chenel that if she came to France, he would find a way to assist her. In 1979, she spent three and a half months in France, apprenticing with four farmstead cheesemakers across Angoulême, Carcassonne, and Joigny.

Chenel returned from France with mold specimens from each farmstead she had visited. In 1979, she lived with her goats on Vine Hill Road in Sonoma County, near Dehlinger Winery. She set up the basement of her house to make cheese, but she was initially unsuccessful. "There were years of established bacteria there, more virulent than the natural cheese bacteria I was attempting to encourage," she explained. About a month and a half later, the microbial environment stabilized, and the cheese began to form with the "correct taste and texture." The same year, Chenel moved to Ridley Avenue in Santa Rosa, California, where she converted a former food processing plant into a cheese factory. She spent the next twelve years at the Ridley facility and eventually gave up her goats to focus entirely on cheesemaking. “I had a certain absolute standard about what had to happen for them, and I was so into this cheese that I couldn’t do it,” she said.

In 2006, the French dairy company Rians acquired the equipment needed, including vats, pasteurizers, and packaging lines from Chenel's Stornetta plant for an undisclosed sum. She retained her herd of 500 goats, continuing to supply milk to Rians, and her staff of 18 employees transitioned to the new ownership. Rians continued to lease the 15-acre former milk dairy and bottling plant owned by the Stornetta family until 2011.

Personal life Chenel has been in a relationship with John Van Dyke, former cheesemaker and general manager of her company, since the late 1990s. As of 2007, she lives in the hills above Sonoma Valley and spends her time gardening and tending to her goat herd.