Culture Magazine

THE HOT LIS T 202 3 culturecheesemag.com 39 I t's not uncommon for people in cheese to have a restaurant background, but Sam Rollins was born into one as the son of legendary Oregon restaurateurs Vernon and Charlene Rollins, who operated New Sammy's Cowboy Bistro for 30 years. "They grew most of the vegetables on the property; it was a labor of love for them and always a model for me," he says. His parents hoped Rollins would take over the restaurant, but his interest in food took him in a different direction. He got a job at Provisions Market Hall in Eugene as a barista, and six months later, was asked to step in as a manager. "I was given this amazing opportunity of managing a specialty food store's cheese and charcuterie department while having no idea what I was doing," he says. "They were really generous about letting me make my own mistakes and learn as I went." One of his cheese suppliers was Cow Bell Fine Cheese, an importer and distributor in Portland. In 2018, when he and his partner decided to move there, Rollins reached out to the owner for a job. He finally landed one during the pandemic; Cow Bell had laid off all its employees but brought Rollins and another monger in to open a small retail shop. "People in Portland were so eager to support local businesses," Rollins says. Cow Bell now has eight employees, which likely helped give Rollins the time and space to prepare for the Cheesemonger Invitational (CMI) Masters in March, where he won one of two spots on the American team that will compete at September's Mondial du Fromage in Tours, France. He'll travel to France twice this year, having earned an all-expenses-paid trip to the Comté region in July for writing the winning 2022 Comté Scholarship essay. "I love everything about CMI—people working together and supporting and learning from each other. I want to feel that same sense of collegiality on a global scale," Rollins says. "The level of expertise in Europe is way above and beyond what we're doing here. The role of the monger here is to make cheese accessible and fun—playing into the friendly side of things rather than the finesse side. It's not that we're not capable of it, but it's a mind switch." That said, he's looking forward to seeing what his fellow competitor, Courtney Johnson, brings to the table. "I think she has a great shot of doing something cool at Mondial and I'm going to try to keep up with her." SAM ROLLINS HEAD CHEESEMONGER & GENERAL MANAGER COW BELL FINE CHEESE PORTLAND, ORE. FUN FACT: "I spent three months in India before moving to Portland. My partner and I both worked at the same business in Eugene, and we took the opportunity to have a clean break between jobs and just travel around India on a train." SOPHIE GENTINE BRAND MANAGER DEER CREEK CHEESE SHEBOYGAN, WIS. WISCONSIN LICENSED CHEESE GRADER #777 A rt was the door through which Sophie Gentine entered her family's business, Deer Creek Cheese. When she was just 14, she began designing Deer Creek's whimsical cheese labels, starting with pencil sketches she would show to her parents, Julie and Chris, before finishing the designs in watercolor or acrylic paint. "I've done some of the fonts as well, like the ones for Indigo Bunting, Imperial Buck, or Rattlesnake—I wrote out a whole alphabet," Gentine says. While studying Retail and Consumer Behavior and Entrepreneurship at the University of Wisconsin– Madison, she started helping her mom with recipe development and social media, but it wasn't until the summer of 2021—after a few years working in digital marketing for the beauty industry— that Sophie joined Deer Creek Cheese full time as brand manager. "I have to be a little bit of a jack-of-all-trades because I'm the boss' kid," she says. She also works events and shows with her dad, who inspired her to become a licensed cheese grader. Gentine passed Wisconsin's two-part test in early April and now holds license number 777. "Half is the sensory part, half is knowing what the salts, fats, moisture, and pH should be—the science part," she says. "I hope to someday have the same palate as my dad because he understands flavor in such a nuanced way—I feel so lucky to have trained under him." Gentine says that working with other female graders and cheese professionals—such as Masters Gallery Foods' VP Sandy Toney and Whole Foods' Global Cheese Buyer Cathy Strange—has been important for validation and for learning how to better describe what she's tasting. "What I'll notice is that I'll pick out a flavor that's related to an experience I've had, like getting hairspray in my mouth," she says. "It's sometimes difficult to describe—what am I tasting, and what does that mean in a technical sense?" Having a cheese grading license adds another layer to quality control for Deer Creek's cheeses, and another level of knowledge that will help sustain her career in the industry, Gentine says. "It would be cool to see how I could shape our business to incorporate my interests and maybe even have a brick-and-mortar store." While she knows her parents will eventually retire, she hopes that doesn't happen too soon. "I love the industry so much; I can't see myself doing anything else, realistically. It's just so much fun." FUN FACT: "I'm really into astrology; learning about my chart and other people's charts. I love to garden, and I love to learn about native plant gardening in Wisconsin, and working on my house. But pretty much cheese is my life."

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