Karen Miltner

@KarenMiltner

One of the region's largest cheesemongers is about to go spelunking in its own cheese cave.

On Wednesday, Wegmans Food Markets unveiled a new 12,300-square-foot facility at its warehouse complex in Chili where it will practice the Old World art of affinage, the French term for ripening or aging cheese.

Company officials believe Wegmans is the first supermarket chain in the country to have such a facility, and say it will greatly improve its portfolio of soft-ripened and washed-rind cheeses such as Epoisses, Prestige de Bourgogne and Pié d'Angloys. Each cheese will have its own temperature-, air flow- and humidity-controlled aging chamber to ensure that the specific microorganisms can flourish without cross-contamination.

These soft and washed rind cheeses do not travel well, explained Cathy Gaffney, Wegmans' director of specialty cheeses, deli and kosher deli. The wheels are partially ripened in their country of origin, then chilled to arrest development during shipping. The new cheese cave will allow Wegmans to finish the process and sell these cheeses when they are at their peak of perfection.

Gaffney likened the affinage process to bananas, which are shipped green then ripened at the store.

The cheeses must also be turned, brushed, washed and spritzed with different solutions such as brine or alcohol to further encourage ripening and distinct flavor profiles. Wegmans hired Eric Meredith, an affineur who trained with world-renowned French cheesemonger Hervé Mons, to oversee the practice, and there will be about half a dozen more full-time staffers devoted to it.

Meredith said in Europe, everyone has a separate job in the production chain. The farmer takes care of milk production. The cheesemaker makes the cheese. The affineur ages that cheese, then the retailer sells it. By keeping these tasks separate, each party devotes more attention to quality, Meredith added.

The facility will service the entire chain, though availability of different types of cheese will be determined by demand, noted CEO Danny Wegman. The cheeses are labeled as cave-aged. There will be no additional cost for the process, Wegman added.

Also on hand were principals from Vermont Creamery. The artisan cheese-maker has made a goats' milk cheese exclusively for Wegmans called 1916 for the year the company was established. The cheese, a shallow, wrinkly disc, is emblazoned with a W of vegetable ash, a traditional cheese preservative.

Due to sanitation requirements, these immaculate white "caves" were not open to media for touring. But windows allowed media to view workers wearing white coats, gloves and hair nets brushing Riesling on delicate wheels.

In Europe, cheese caves have been traditionally built into the ground like bunkers.

Wegman, by his own definition the chain's No. 1 cheese customer, described his super-clean, state-of-the-art facility this way: "It looks more like a giant cooler than a cave. But cave sounds better."

KMILTNER@DemocratandChronicle.com