Our Story
It began as a farmer’s cheese. Time made it something else.
In Texas, raw-milk cheese must age at least sixty days: two moons. That is where the name comes from. This is the story of what happened when the wheels were given much more than that.
Joaquín Avellán · the Dos Lunas story · 5 min
Barinitas, Venezuela
The father’s dairy
Joaquín’s father ran a small dairy where the Venezuelan plains meet the Andes, near the village of Barinitas. In 2009 Joaquín went to help him after a heart surgery, and stayed to learn how the cheese was made.
Texas, 2009–2011
The beginnings
Back in Texas, Joaquín began making cheese with raw milk from the grass-fed Jerseys of Stryk Jersey Farm in Schulenburg. The family helped with everything, from the vats to the farmers market stand.
The craft
Hundreds of gallons, by hand
Batch after batch, Joaquín made the cheese himself, starting at midnight and finishing the next evening. He kept a record of every batch: date, milk, cultures and wheel.
The cellar
What time did
Some wheels never left the cellar. Over the years the whey, the cultures and the cave kept working: blues grew on their own, rinds changed, crystals formed. Joaquín looked after them and let them become what they were going to be.
Today
All there will ever be
Since 2022 no new cheese has been made. What rests in the cellar today, from the 2011 vintage on, is all there will ever be. Each wheel is numbered and released a few at a time.