Mark the calendar: Workshop: Stone Alpine Styles is set for early April, and it's one of the first in-person sessions we've put on the schedule in some time. We know that's a bigger ask than it used to be — travel plans still take more thought than they did two years ago, and we're building this one with that in mind, including a smaller room, a capped headcount, and a schedule that leaves space between sessions rather than packing the day wall to wall.
The workshop covers washed-curd and pressed Alpine-style makes, with a heavy focus on the affinage side: rind development, cave humidity management, and reading a wheel's progress by touch and smell rather than just a data logger. It's hands-on in a way our virtual sessions this year haven't been able to replicate, which is exactly why we kept it on the calendar even as most of our programming has moved to a screen. A number of the industry event organizers we've compared notes with have described the same pattern this year: smaller, local, drive-to sessions coming back well before the larger conferences do.
Who this is for
If you've been through Affinage Fundamentals or have a few years of hands-on cave time already, this workshop goes deeper than either. It's not an introductory session — expect to be evaluating real wheels at different stages of maturity and talking through what you'd change about the make that produced them. A few members who've asked about a next step after their affinage coursework, this is the one to watch for.
We'll also say plainly: if travel isn't the right call for you or your operation right now, that's a completely reasonable decision, and we don't want anyone feeling pressure to attend for the sake of it. We're planning to record portions of the discussion sessions for members who can't be there in person, even though the tasting and evaluation segments don't translate well to video. If enough members ask, we'll look at adding a second, virtual-only discussion track alongside it, though we're not promising that yet.
Given the smaller footprint, expect distanced tasting stations rather than a shared table, and a check-in process that takes a few extra minutes compared to what you might remember from a 2019 event. None of that is meant to make the day feel clinical — it's meant to let us hold the session at all. Bring your own tasting spoons and a notebook; shared equipment is being kept to a minimum this time around.
It's a small sign of the calendar filling back in more broadly: the trade press has also been covering award and recognition programs reopening nominations this quarter, after some sat quiet for much of last year. None of that is us — our own Awards & Competition Committee has its own separate calendar — but it's a reasonable read on where the wider industry's head is at right now: cautiously back in motion.
Practical details
Seats are limited given the smaller room, and past in-person sessions on this scale have filled faster than our webinars. If you're weighing it, don't wait past the next few weeks to decide — the Events Committee has been fielding early interest and can tell you where things stand before you commit to travel. Watch the events calendar for registration and the exact schedule, and feel free to reach out to the committee directly with any accessibility or scheduling questions before you book anything.
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.