Cheese Shops We Love: Valley Cheese & Wine

Valley Cheese & Wine

1570 West Horizon Ridge Pkwy. #140

Henderson, NV 89012

Showing up for Cheese

“Cheese is just like us. It's a representation of how it's been treated throughout its lifecycle,” says Diana Brier, owner of Las Vegas’s Valley Cheese & Wine. “If it had a bullshit time it's probably not going to show up pretty well for you, is it? That's why these cheeses that are just choking in vacuum seals are not going to show up as anything other than barnyardian and lipolytic because if you suffocated me in my own juices, I'd be pissed too.” Given this philosophy, it’s no wonder that Brier’s mission for her store is, “we are kind here when we are here”: to the cheeses, the personnel, and the clientele. It’s not only her business, but her refuge, and she is determined to keep it as such.

Valley Cheese & Wine presented itself as an ownership opportunity to Brier exactly when she needed it to. She’d moved to Las Vegas for the dry heat that was critical to her health and had stopped into the store for a bottle at a low moment. She’d spent time working for a cheese warehouse and distribution operation, and had toyed with making her own cheese, when she came to the unfortunate realization that, “I (thought) I had to leave Las Vegas because there’s just not enough cheese here.” The former Valley Cheese & Wine owner, who knew Brier through her distribution work, said in response, “I can’t believe you came in today. I just decided to sell the shop.”

Brier maintains that this is always how cheese has shown up for her, throwing her a lifeline and illuminating the path forward when she wasn’t sure what to do next. So it’s no wonder she treats it with appropriate reverence.

The Store

To an East Coaster’s eyes, the first thing one notices about Valley Cheese & Wine is how expansive it is, with a footprint that seems closer to a department store than a typical cheese shop, with shelves upon shelves of bottles, on top of a full deli with cases for artisan cheeses and meats, and copious tables stacked with artisanal cheese-adjacent products like jam and chocolates. The back of the store also features standing tables made from repurposed wine barrels that encourage people to linger.

Those tables were essential to the clubhouse feel that Brier wanted to create. Taking over Valley Cheese & Wine mid-pandemic would be a challenge, but Brier was nonetheless up for it. Dubbed the Wonder Woman of Cheese by a former employer, (partially due to some cuff tattoos but also a certain badassery that is apparent immediately upon meeting her,) she recognized the need to refocus the efforts of the store on both the cheese and the wine, and to make it more than just a place to run an errand, but a destination unto itself.

“As soon as I took over, I wanted to reimplement everything in the deli,” says Brier. “We needed to have a cheese professional and a wine professional on site as much as possible, to open up the scope of possibility to everyone, which is why we implemented happy hour, and which is why I started a practice that you can take a bottle off the shelf and drink it while you're shopping. We want you to have an excuse to come on the other side of town and spend some time here.”

Featured Cheeses

Brier’s happy hour program was a “field of dreams,” type of initiative. “If they come, they will stay,” she says. “So the happy hour is basically a three cheese and prosciutto board and a bottle of wine for $40, that you could have in house or that's also available curbside and to go.”

Las Vegas has become a culinary destination in its own right in the last couple of decades, and according to Brier is ripe for artisanal cheese. She says her customers are a mix of well-traveled types who are very familiar with world cheeses, as well as those who are looking for basics such as smoked gouda, so Brier’s happy hour cheese board was designed with both camps in mind. “We're able to really train palates here and really help people reframe their mindsets about cheese,” she says. Recently happy hour selections have included:

Délice de Bourgogne

A buttery, soft-ripened, French triple crème blended with crème fraîche that serves as an intro to other deluxe cheeses like Brillat Savarin and Explorateur. “I would put it in as an entry level cheese, because it's so butter-forward and just has a little bit of those mushroomy undertones,” says Brier, “but still your aficionado is going to keep it as an old faithful. It's very affable.”

Artigiano® Aged Balsamic & Cipolline Onion Cheese

A complex but approachable cheese that straddles the line between sweet and savory in every element: the vinegar, the onions, and the mixed-culture, crystalline cheese itself. “That’s a big mover for us,” Brier adds.

Shooting Star Sagittarius

A cow and sheep milk, gouda-style cheese from wunderkind Avery Jones that Brier likes to use as an introduction to more complex, sheep’s milk cheeses, but with a familiar, gouda format. “Shooting Star Creamery is flying under the radar and shouldn't be,” says Brier. “I mean, (Jones) might be out of high school, but I don't think she's in her 20s yet. And working with sheep milk first, you're just like, okay, who starts with sheep?”

Also Look For

Brier teaches frequent classes at the store on a variety of topics that are never the same from class to class. “I like to be playful, but I also like to be serious,” says Brier. In addition to Cheese 101 classes that break down major categories of cheese, and straightforward pairing classes featuring not only wine but also beer and other beverages, Brier also revels in a creative approach to cheese education:

“I'm doing a nostalgia series, because I’ve noticed everybody's been really 90s nostalgic lately,” says Brier. “So we're actually going to decorate the classroom more like a classroom you would expect from your education in the 90s. Everybody's gonna have a little sack lunch with their name and a handwritten note about how great they're doing in life on a napkin. There’s going to be a peanut butter and jelly sandwich, a cup of applesauce, a fruit cup, and a bag of chips. And I'm going pair all of those things with cheeses and wines while watching ‘Saved by the Bell.’”

That definitely covers the playful side, but as for serious? “I have been asked for a cheese chemistry class,” says Brier, who is well-equipped to teach such a topic having basically touched every aspect of the cheese business from monger to production manager to affineur during her cheese career. “But then people get really weird about signing up,” she says. “Because yeah, if you ask me for a cheese chemistry class, you're going to get a cheese chemistry class, right?”