Famed cheese maker, ‘Ig’ Vella, dies at 82

As the elder statesman of artisanal cheeses, Ignazio “Ig” Vella gave pointed advice to those who wanted to follow him into the handmade cheese business: “Don’t be stupid.”

He was a gruff straightshooter, and the salvo was his way of warning that success required a willingness to toil for uncertain financial gain.

Once that caveat was spelled out, Vella invariably became an unselfish teacher and tireless advocate for small-scale producers of cheese, according to those in the industry.

He had a lifetime of expertise – his father, Gaetano “Tom” Vella, pioneered Italian-style cheeses in the West after opening Vella Cheese Co. in Sonoma, Calif., in 1931, the year his son turned 3.

Ig Vella, who took over his family’s business in the 1980s, died June 9 at his Sonoma home after a long illness, said a daughter, Chickie Vella. He was 82.

The company is best known for its award-winning Dry Monterey Jack, which originally was marketed as a substitute for Parmesan and other hard Italian cheeses and vanished from the American market during World War I.

“On the West Coast, and beyond, he was regarded as the godfather of artisanal cheese,” said Christine Hyatt, president of the Colorado-based American Cheese Society, which recognized him in 2006 with its first life achievement award.

“He was truly a giant in our community and a mentor to so many,” she said.

A Sonoma native, Vella was born in 1928 and as a boy rode with his father in a Model A truck to deliver cheese.

After his father opened a secondary facility in southern Oregon in 1935, the younger Vella spent summers working there.

When he was 11, he served as a covert translator for his father, a Sicilian immigrant unsure of his English skills.

“I sat in the offices of Kraft Foods while my father discussed business with J.L. Kraft,” the company founder, Vella told The Associated Press in 2000. “My father quizzed me all the way home on what happened.”

A penchant for high jinks got the younger Vella expelled from his local high school, and he graduated from San Rafael Military Academy in 1946.

After earning a bachelor’s degree in history at Santa Clara University in 1950, Vella trained as an officer in the Air Force and served in the Korean War.