Blakesville is a woman owned and operated farmstead creamery in Port Washington, Wisconsin. Veronica Pedraza – known to her friends as V – is the head cheesemaker and general manager of the creamery. The creamery is located on Blakesville’s 200-acre dairy farm, which is home to about 1500 goats. The goat’s milk cheeses V makes are all farmstead (meaning they’re made on the same farm where the animals are raised), and almost all of the feed the goats eat is grown right there on the farm as well. For their sheep’s milk cheeses, V buys Assaf sheep's milk from Ms. J and Co., a sheep and goat farm just a couple hours away. 

Cheese journalist Janet Fletcher described Veronica as a “rockstar cheesemaker,” and we couldn’t agree more. Prior to Blakesville, V worked all over the cheese world. She apprenticed at Sweet Grass Dairy, and worked at Jasper Hill Farm. She spent five years as the head cheesemaker making sheep’s milk cheeses at Meadowood Farms. She’s also worked behind the counter – V was Anne Saxelby’s first employee at Saxelby Cheesemongers, and later worked at Pastoral Artisan Cheese. V first launched the Blakesville cheese line in the summer of 2020 – a decidedly difficult time to be introducing new cheese to the market – but her exceptional cheesemaking skills cut through the pandemic noise, and she built the line into something really special. Today V is one of the country’s most celebrated cheesemakers, and the Blakesville cheeses are some of the best you can buy.