Mikayelyan Family Farm

Mikayelyan Family Farm

The farm was founded in 2012 in the town of Gavar, Gegharkunik Province. At first it produced the traditional Armenian brined cheeses Lori and Chanakh. Over time, after many experiments, the farm moved to making signature cheeses based on its own recipes. Today 10 kinds of signature cheese are made on a regular basis, such as cheese aged in wine, in cognac, a cheese that combines brie and roquefort at once, cheese in grape leaves, and others. Only pasteurized milk from the farm's own cows is used to make the cheeses. The cows graze on clean high-mountain meadows and eat only natural feed. Besides cheese, we also make dry-cured lightly salted meat. Because production is small, the cheeses can only be bought here — they are not sold in shops. At most you may find a couple of kinds in some wine stores in Yerevan, for example at In Vino.

Cheese-making in Armenia

According to historical sources, cheese has been made in Armenia since time immemorial. The ancient Greek author Xenophon confirms this in his work Anabasis. Armenians were processing milk thousands of years ago. Clay devices and tools for making cheese were found during archaeological excavations at Karmir Blur, Lchashen, Polovino and other sites, dating to the era of the kingdom of Urartu (9th–6th centuries BC). The country's geographic position at the crossroads of the main West–East trade routes, and the abundance of alpine and subalpine pastures and meadows, encouraged the development of livestock and dairy farming in Armenia.

5 interesting facts about cheese

• An article published in the journal Analytical Chemistry in 2018 says that the oldest cheese in the world was found in ancient Egyptian tombs. The cheese is about 3,200 years old.
• The first cheese dairy was founded in Switzerland in 1815, but mass production began later, in 1851.
• In Italy there are 4 banks that accept expensive cheese as collateral.
• Scientists have been trying for almost a century to work out why holes form in cheese. In 1917 the American William Clark discovered that these openings are the result of bacteria. The bacteria release carbon dioxide, which forms holes in the enclosed space of the cheese.