Registration opened this week for Workshop: Stone Alpine Styles, our small hands-on session on stone-ground, washed-rind Alpine cheeses, running April 5 in a real make room rather than over a video call. It is the first in-person session we have put back on the calendar since last spring, and members have been asking for exactly this kind of practical, small-group format for months.
We want to be upfront about what "in person" means right now, because it is not the same event it would have been two years ago.
Why this one, and why now
The waitlist for our virtual Alpine-style sessions has been longer than any single webinar can serve well, and washing-rind timing, curd texture at the press, and cave humidity readings are genuinely hard to teach through a screen. Members who took our virtual affinage sessions last fall told us the same thing: they could follow the theory, but they wanted to put a hand on a wheel. This workshop is our answer to that, kept deliberately small so we can run it safely.
What the safety plan looks like
Capacity is capped well below the room's normal limit, spacing is built into the make-room layout rather than left to chance, and we are asking every registrant to complete a short health screening the morning of the session. Hand sanitizing stations sit at each workstation, shared tools are cleaned between uses rather than between sessions, and we have a staff member whose only job that day is watching for anything that needs attention on the safety side. If local guidance in the host region tightens before April, we will convert to a virtual format and refund the difference rather than gather anyway — we made that call on two events last year and would rather lose a registration fee than take a chance with your health.
None of this is a guarantee, and we say that plainly rather than promise more than a workshop organizer reasonably can. It is a smaller, more careful version of the event we used to run without thinking twice about it, and for now that is the trade we are making.
As for what you will actually make: the day covers stone-pressed curd handling, brine timing for a firmer paste, and a full walkthrough of washed-rind maintenance from day one through eight weeks of aging — the stretch where most home-scale and small-batch attempts either find their rind or lose it to the wrong bacterial balance. You will leave with a wheel in progress, a written aging log template, and enough troubleshooting notes to get it through your own cave.
Seats are limited on purpose, and we expect this one to fill faster than our webinars typically do. If you have been waiting for a hands-on session since last year's calendar went virtual, this is the one to grab. Registration and the full health screening form are both live in the member portal now, and our Events Committee can answer format or safety questions directly if you reach out before you book.
The International Cheese Federation (ICF) and More Cheese are entirely fictional. This post is demonstration content created for MemberJunction. All people, organizations, events, courses, certifications, figures, and quotations in it are invented, and nothing here represents a real association, a real business, a real person, or real professional advice.